Anomalies of Time
by Entwinedlove
Summary: Part of the Marvelously Magical Bingo collection 2018. / Sometimes the fates meddle. Sometimes what one vengeful god tears apart another pulls together. A collection of one-shots that tell a story that spans a century. Sirius Lives!, Bucky Lives!, Time Travel, Coworkers, Disabled Character, Huddling for Warmth, AU – Repealed Statute of Secrecy (Hermione/Bucky/Peggy/Steve endgame)
1. Gut Punch

**Gut Punch**

 _Bucky's new SSR partner keeps engaging in destructive behaviour and though he doesn't feel qualified to give him a talking to, he does it. Because it's what Steve would do._

Pairing: Bucky & Sirius  
Rating: teen  
Warnings: Canon Disabled Character, Mentioned Suicidal Thoughts, Self-Destructive Behavior  
Tropes: Bucky Barnes lives, Coworkers (SSR), Sirius Lives, Time Travel  
Words: 1,375  
Original Release Date: 04 Aug 2018  
Square: I2 - "Sometimes I think you like getting punched."

* * *

Bucky was having the nightmare again. He knew it, he recognised it, but he still couldn't shake himself out of it. He was falling. He could still see Steve above him, hanging onto the side of the train car. In the dream, he watched the train until it was out of sight. In reality, he had started tumbling mid-air; he'd seen the rocky mountainside rushing up to meet him faster than he could imagine. The sharp hit of the first jagged rock sent the dream into a hazy mix of white and red and pain. It wasn't until he was up and stumbling around in the direction he knew the rendezvous point was that he came back to himself. That was the same in both. When he was found, dazed from the cold and the shock and the blood loss, they said he'd walked almost a mile. The family that had found him took him in, bandaged him up as best they could and put him in a bed. They said he slept for almost two weeks. They had expected him to die.

But he hadn't.

When he'd resurfaced, they'd fed him and shared their possessions with him with a generosity and kindness he wasn't expecting. He had wanted to leave as soon as possible, surely they couldn't keep up with an extra mouth to feed in the heavy snow and cold, but they had refused to hear it, telling him he wouldn't survive if he headed out into the snow alone. He'd have to wait for the snows to melt. In those months of coalescence, they shared their secret with him. A secret he wouldn't have believed when he'd just been a simple fella from Brooklyn.

Magic was real.

Bucky woke up with a jolt. Normally the dream turned into a full out nightmare, being found by HYDRA and turned into a weapon like Steve had signed up to be. He supposed it followed closer to the truth now because of his newest partner in the SSR.

When he'd finally come out of the snowy mountains it was to learn that Steve had died a few days after he'd fallen and the Allies had won the war. When he was finally back in New York he'd felt lost. He was missing an arm and missing his best friend. What was he supposed to do? For a time, he was in a dark place. Then Peggy came round and suggested he join the SSR. At first, he'd said no—because what good would a cripple be as an agent?—but she'd convinced him that Steve would have wanted him to continue on.

So now he was Agent Barnes.

It'd been about three years since the war and in that time SSR had learned about magic. It hadn't been from Bucky, no he wouldn't have shared his rescuers' secret like that. Peggy had even cornered him and asked what he knew when she broke the case because he was the only agent to not be shocked or outraged ("Why hadn't they helped the Allies in the war?" had been heard from many of the other agents for weeks after they'd learned about the existence of wizards.) And perhaps because of that, he'd been the one selected as the senior partner for the newest SSR agent.

One, Sirius Black.

Black had his own long history including 12 years of false imprisonment, two wars of his own, and time travel. He'd fallen through some mysterious veil of purported death and stumbled out almost fifty years into the past. The SSR had heard of him and offered him a chance to do some good as an Agent. He and Bucky were still getting used to one another.

A noise caught Bucky's attention and he blinked at the clock at his bedside table of the motel they were staying in. Three in the morning. What the hell was going on out there? He rolled out of bed and grabbed his pistol from where he kept it on the nightstand. Stark had modified it so he could reload and cock it with one hand so he didn't bother with the prosthetic. He crept toward the door and used his toe to push it open a bit further from where it was cracked. He peeked out and tried to locate the noise. Odd, shuffling footsteps in the corridor. He glanced at the other bedroom door. Was Black asleep?

Bucky moved out past his door and kept his back along the wall as he moved toward the door leading out into the corridor. He was almost to it when he heard an even louder bang and the recognizable accent of his partner, "Fuck it. _Alohamora_." The door lock flipped and the door swung open, Bucky shifted at the same time, pointing his weapon at the man's face for three seconds before lowering it once he got a better look at him.

Black's face was red and purple.

"Who rearranged your face?" Bucky asked.

Black tilted his head and gave a little shrug. "Some bird's fellow, I guess." He stumbled further into the room and knocked the door closed with another loud bang. The displaced air sent a wave of whisky-tinged odour Bucky's way and he sighed and flipped on the safety on his pistol. He stepped back and set the gun on the end table next to the sofa.

"Sit down, I'll get the med kit," he told Black. As he walked around the sofa to dig through their equipment bag he muttered, "Sometimes, I think you like getting punched."

"Not particularly," Black muttered. "Wouldn't be so bad if I could use my wand."

"On random men who're just protecting their girls from your philandering ways?" Bucky pulled the small kit from the bag and moved to set up at the table. He twisted the switch to turn on the lamp and Black winced from the light.

"I just want to get my dick wet, mate."

"I don't need to know that," Bucky said. He tore one of the antiseptic pads open with his teeth and spit the paper out. He dabbed at the busted skin at Black's temple, eyebrow, and lip. There was blood on his upper lip and at his nose. "Did your nose get broke too?"

Black nodded and sighed. "Yes. Fixed that already."

Bucky worked in silence as he cleaned up Black's face. Once all the blood was gone and he'd treated all the wounds he could see, he set the supplies down on the table and leaned back. He studied Black's face for another moment before asking, "What are you really doing, Sirius?"

He grinned but it was sad and brittle. "I never thought time travel would happen to me, you know? And if I ever did think about it, I expected to go back to my own lifetime. My friends..." he trailed off and Bucky nodded.

"I know what it's like to lose good friends in the war. When one day they're there and the next they got their head blown off. I know what it's like to lose my _best_ friend." He paused, watching Black's eyes, watching him swallow down his pain. "You can't keep doing this to yourself. They wouldn't want you to." They shared the silence for another heavy pause before Black nodded. Bucky nodded as well and patted him on the shoulder. "All right, pal. Why don't you get some sleep? We're on a plane back to New York tomorrow. If you promise not to try to get under the dame's skirt, I'll see if I can't get us a double date when we get there. We'll go dancing."

"Sure," Black said. He got up and headed to his bedroom. He stopped and looked back at Bucky. "Thanks."

Bucky nodded and watched as he closed the door behind him. He sighed and looked down at his hand. He didn't feel qualified to give that speech, much less to a man older than him, but he hoped it had helped. When Peggy had given it to him, it had. When they got back State-side he needed to make it a point to see her. Maybe they could drive down to Arlington. He missed Steve.


	2. Half-Cocked Plan

**Half-Cocked Plan**

 _Barnes had said, "don't do anything stupid." So Sirius decided he'd take down the burglar a little unconventionally._

Pairing: Bucky & Sirius  
Rating: teen  
Warnings: Blood, Canon Disabled Character, Violence  
Tropes: Bucky Barnes lives, Coworkers (SSR), Sirius Lives, Time Travel  
Words: 1,509  
Original Release Date: 20 Aug 2018  
Square: O4 - "Don't do anything stupid until I get back."

* * *

Sirius hated the pistol they'd given him. It was heavy and loud and he was a horrible shot with it. But he wasn't really 'SSR Agent Black' without it. He really wanted to use his wand but he knew he couldn't. Just because Barnes and the rest of SSR knew about magic didn't mean he could go breaking the Statute of Secrecy on a whim.

On their last case, Barnes had laid out the plan to deal with the possible supernatural entity posing as a New Jersey state Senator. He would approach and ask to speak with the Senator privately about his missing wife. Unfortunately, the Senator was not pleased to see the agents investigating the missing persons case and set his bodyguards—big, hulking men with two arms each who knew how to fight hand-to-hand—on Barnes. Barnes with his one arm and bulky, plastic prosthetic that was meant for general tasks, not fighting. He'd held his own against the first all right but when the second swung hard and Barnes went down flat with one hit Sirius had rushed in, pistol in both hands and pointed at the bodyguards. They hadn't stopped and so he'd shot them. Or _at_ them. He hit one in the neck instead of the chest (or shoulder, which is what he was actually aiming for) and the second had fled. Barnes had been covered in blood and the cleaning bill for the carpet the big man had bled out on was sent to SSR. The Senator had then barricaded himself with lawyers and the simple mission of talking to him was made infinitely harder.

Chief Thompson was brassed, to say the least, and had even told Sirius that he was tempted to take away his pistol if it wouldn't leave Barnes without backup. Sirius had really wanted to say he was better at aiming with his wand but there'd been so much innuendo in headquarters when he'd first mentioned his wand he didn't want to bring it up again.

Right now they were around the corner from some crazy wanker who was attempting to burgle some fancy weapon prototype of the inventor Howard Stark. This had apparently happened in the past but this time, Stark was in on it and the gadget was supposed to be bait. Except, somewhere wires had got crossed and the real gismo was in the warehouse.

Sirius was crouched low to the ground and Barnes was leaning over him so they could both peek around the corner as the burglar came out of the building with a rucksack on one shoulder. "Don't do anything stupid until I get back," Barnes whispered as he suddenly pulled his suit jacket and pistol holster off his shoulders. He dropped them behind Sirius and then casually strolled around the corner towards the criminal.

What the hell was he going to do? Chat up the man?

Sirius watched Barnes amble down the pavement, watching how he forced his shoulders to relax. He had manipulated his prosthetic so it was bent at the elbow and the claw was tucked into his pocket. He looked like a regular, two-armed fellow as he moved. The burglar didn't seem to notice him at first but as Barnes closed ground between them, his attention caught on him. The criminal watched him approach and called out to him. Sure enough, Barnes just walked up to the guy like he was about to chat about the weather.

Sirius knew better than to go for his pistol this time. Besides, right now, the situation didn't require it. But that could change. Finally, making a decision that wouldn't get anyone covered in blood or killed, Sirius slipped back from the corner and looked around. It was a narrow alley that was half blocked off by a large rubbish bin at the other end. He was isolated. He shifted into Padfoot and stretched his back. He licked his snout and trotted down the alley and around the half block.

* . * . *

Bucky was once again, walking into a dangerous situation with a less-than-stellar plan and minimal backup. He liked Black, he did, but he was shit for backup. That Senator's missing wife case they botched was a prime example of why the shouldn't be working together. He needed a partner who wasn't terrified of his gun and knew how to shoot it when necessary. Bucky was still a good shot with a pistol but he was also the better charmer and boxer. Of the two of them, he was better at getting information out of people just by talking. He thought if Black could use his wand, he'd be a better agent but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon unless they wanted to challenge some International law regarding the secrecy of magic.

As he approached the cat burglar, Bucky took in the details of the fella. He was wearing a well-tailored brown-striped suit but his shoes were scuffed and his belt didn't match. There was an odd orange stain on the cuff of one sleeve and on the canvas backpack he'd slung over his shoulder. Bucky made a note to not touch whatever it was. If it came from Stark's prototype it could be dangerous. He didn't think it was corrosive but that didn't discount slow-acting poison. It was a weapon, after all. Stark had failed in explaining exactly what this prototype did, though.

This whole case was on rickety legs. It had come together too quickly and Stark had seemed too willing to share such a dangerous gadget as bait. He wondered who in Stark's circle of acquaintances he'd pissed off to be targeted so often. Maybe this time it wasn't about the weapons at all. Stark slept with enough women that Bucky was sure he had cuckolded someone at least once.

The burglar spotted him then and called him over; Bucky strolled up to him. "What can I do for ya?" he asked, his best charming smile in place. It'd always worked on getting Steve and a multitude of women to do what he wanted, he figured it couldn't hurt to try it in this case.

The burglar's eyes had narrowed on Bucky's chest and right shoulder where the prosthetic was attached with two buckles that showed under his dress shirt. "What happened to you?"

"Ah, war wound. You look a little lost. Did you need directions or somethin'?"

"No. I wanted to know what agency you're with."

"What?" Bucky asked, trying to keep his cool on the outside while on the inside he was starting to berate himself for how stupid this plan had been. At this distance, Bucky could just make out the outline of a pistol holster strap underneath the man's jacket. He should have kept his own on. Dammit.

The burglar shifted, his hand slipping into his jacket, "I said, which agency are you with?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, pal," Bucky said, taking a half step back. The man pulled his firearm into view, aiming directly at Bucky's chest. Bucky raised his right arm with his palm up. "Hey, wait a minute, pal—holy shit!"

Before he could ramble out anything suitable to calm the man down an enormous black dog came charging between them. His jaws clamped on the man's wrist and Bucky would have sworn he heard bones break in that maw. The rest of the dog's massive body collided with the man and both of them went tumbling down onto the street. The gun fired and Bucky jumped back, would have obviously been too late had the bullet been heading his way. The man screamed and flailed as the dog continued to hold him down with his broken wrist, unable to move the gun up to shoot the dog or Bucky. Bucky jerked out of his stupor and pulled the backpack away from the man and knelt on his back, pulling at one of his hands to hold him steady. He looked up, back towards the corner where he'd left Black but didn't see his partner heading his way with the handcuffs. He sighed and wondered if he could use the man's jacket as a makeshift tie when the dog nosed the gun away from the man and trotted away. Not a minute later, Black came from the direction the dog had gone and helped him cuff the burglar. Bucky didn't think too much of it as they grabbed the guy's gun and the stolen prototype and frogmarched the burglar to their car to take him to SSR headquarters.

They were debriefing with Thompson and Bucky was recounting his story. "And then this giant black dog just showed up and tackled the guy. It was pretty amazing."

Black spoke up, half gesturing with his hand, "Oh yeah, thanks, that was me."

"What?" Thompson asked, blinking in confusion at Black. "You can turn into a dog? Are you serious?"

Black gave him a shit-eating grin and said, "Well, that's a funny story, you see..."

Bucky couldn't help it when he started sniggering.


	3. Deed I Do

**Deed I Do**

 _Sirius gave Bucky a half-hearted shrug. "Maybe I do have something to prove."_

Pairing: Peggy/Bucky, Bucky & Sirius  
Rating: teen  
Warnings: Period-Typical Racism  
Tropes: Bucky Barnes lives, Coworkers (SSR & SHIELD), Sirius Lives, Time Travel  
Words: 2,621  
Original Release Date: 23 Sep 2018  
Square: G5 - "Right, cuz you got nothin' to prove."  
Additional Notes: The holiday one-shot "The Moose" (Twelve Days of Xover Xmas) occurs before this one in the Anomalies of Time timeline.

* * *

SSR's headquarters were empty late this Friday evening. Many of Bucky's coworkers had gone home to their wives or met up for drinks after work. He could have gone. He'd been invited. Instead, he was taking his time to pack up his desk. There was a surprising amount of things that were his, from the alternate claw and fake hand for his prosthetic to his firearm cleaning kit. The handgun was his as were the two photographs, laid flat in his top desk drawer so no one else would see them unless they were snooping.

He laid both pictures in the top of his box, smiling at the moving one. It was of him and Peggy dancing.

The sound of someone clearing their throat had him looking up. Sirius was leaning against the doorjamb, watching him.

"You didn't go out for celebratory drinks with the fellas?" Bucky asked.

Sirius shook his head and entered the room, coming to sit on the edge of Bucky's bare desk. "Nope. Didn't see the point of celebrating. My partner's been offered a new job, you see. I'm feeling a little... melancholy about it. You know, 'that typical Sirius stuff.'"

The other men in SSR had finally had to stop targeting Peggy with their ostracising after she left to found SHIELD and they'd decided Sirius was _other_ enough to be a good substitute. No matter how much Bucky had tried to get them to stop they rarely let up. He was actually rather shocked that Sirius was planning on staying at SSR now that Bucky'd been recruited by SHIELD.

"You want to go out for drinks just the two of us?" Bucky asked.

Sirius snorted in amusement. "You make it sound like I'm never going to see you again. I see how much you value my friendship."

"Hey, that's not what I meant. I was just..."

"You know what I want? I want you to teach me how to shoot. Properly, I mean. Thompson gave me a rudimentary run down and just assumed that pointing a wand was the same as a pistol. It's not."

"Why now? You've been an SSR agent for two years. You've managed to make it work."

"Because," was all he said but there was a stubborn tip to his chin. "I just want to be better at my job is all."

"Right, cuz you got nothin' to prove."

Sirius gave a half-hearted shrug. "Maybe I do have something to prove."

Bucky sat back down in his chair, feeling the pieces click together in his head. Sirius skipping out after lunch last week. Peggy mentioning a failed recruitment exam that night over dinner. Sirius had applied for SHIELD and failed the weapons test. No wonder he didn't feel like celebrating.

"All right. Shooting lessons," Bucky conceded, "What do I get in return, seeing as you're trying to follow me to SHIELD?"

Sirius grinned mischievously. "How about I keep hounding you about that ring you've been carrying around. What's it been now? A year?"

Bucky sighed and shook his head, he should have known confiding in Sirius was a bad idea. "Six months, asshole. It's only been six months."

"And you still haven't found the right time to ask?" He said, raising his eyebrows. "Maybe you're scared she won't say yes?"

Bucky knew Sirius was teasing, of course, but he licked his lips and leaned back, nodding once slowly. He was terrified Peggy would say no. It had been a whim that he'd asked his mom for her ring in the first place but even after a year and a half, with dates mixed in with missions and falling into each other's beds, Bucky wasn't sure what Peggy felt for him. Did she feel like she was settling every time she looked at him? He wasn't Steve. He never would be, never _could_ be, but that didn't mean he loved her any less. "Honestly, I don't know if she's even the marrying sort of dame," he said.

Sirius's grin had slipped away in the few moments it took Bucky to answer. "You really are daft, aren't you? She'll say yes, mate." He reached over and patted Bucky on the arm. "Come on, sounds like you need some Dutch courage."

Bucky scoffed a little laugh and shook his head but stood. "I don't think drinking's going to help anything, Sirius."

"Sure it will. Firewisky'll give you courage. I've found the perfect place too."

"You've gone bar-hopping lately?" Bucky asked as he manipulated his prosthetic so he could pick up his box of things.

Sirius hummed. "It's a speakeasy. It's got live music."

"Didn't think you would know what a speakeasy was... but then again, you're always _sniffing_ out the best places for booze."

Sirius rolled his eyes but smiled and held the door so Bucky could walk through with his box. "Ooo, nice underhanded Animagus joke. No one's ever mentioned sniffing before," he drawled.

* . * . *

Bucky looked around the dingy pub with something like awe on his face. He'd known about magic for five years now... but he'd never known about magic like this. There was a giant in the corner, hunched over so his head wouldn't hit the ceiling. The live music was being performed by a... goblin? The Firewhisky and Gigglewater that Sirius had ordered had been provided by another small creature that Bucky didn't have a name for.

Sirius's favourite drink, Firewhisky, burned like cinnamon as Bucky swallowed it and he felt warmth in his body from head to toe. Even his eyelids felt warmed. He could understand getting addicted to the feeling. He stopped himself from ordering a second one and was content to lean back and listen to the singer. Mixed in with the magical-themed songs were renditions of popular songs that he knew. He tapped his foot to the tempo and relaxed.

Things were fine until a small group of young men came down the stairs, disrespecting the singer by talking loudly. "Damn No-Majs are everywhere these days," the freckled leader said, "Can't even get a drink without having to look over your shoulder to make sure some little shit isn't nosing around behind you."

Bucky didn't let himself stiffen at the words. Although Sirius had always called him a Muggle he could understand the sentiment of _No-Maj_. He glanced at Sirius from the corner of his eye and Sirius nodded, standing and pulling out a few coins to pay for their drinks. Bucky made to follow but was stopped when one of the men laid an arm across his shoulders in a mockery of camaraderie.

"You disagree with me about No-Majs being trash, bucko?"

Bucky didn't react but Sirius had to go and snort.

"What?" the man said, squeezing, his fingers digging into the plastic cup at the top of his prosthetic. "You got a problem?" He asked, addressing Sirius.

"No," Sirius said and though he tried to keep a straight face, a smile was slowly crawling up his lips, "You just mispronounced my friend's name is all."

The man's hand squeezed again and then he yanked down on Bucky's sleeve. He or one of his buddies must have used his wand because the seam at the shoulder gave way on both his jacket and his shirt, exposing the top of his prosthetic and the angry-looking scar tissue underneath. "Hmph, what's this? We got a No-Maj in our midst?" he taunted, shoving Bucky a step away from him. His friends formed a rough circle around him like they were vultures. "How do you lose it? Slam it in a door like the dumb animal you are?"

"Lost it in the war," Bucky answered with as much nonchalance as he could muster.

"What war?" the guy asked, mockery in his tone. "The stupid No-Maj thinks we care about his stupid war, you believe that fellas?" he asked his friends.

Bucky could hear them all grumbling their agreement around him. He tilted his head a little, might as well get the last word in before he got his ass kicked when Sirius stepped in. He used his height to crowd up on the lead guy and get in his face. "Ever heard of Grindelwald, you ignorant bellend? Ever see what a Reductor Curse does to body parts? It isn't pretty." He raised his wand and dug the tip of it into the guy's shoulder. "I can show you if you like?"

There was something terrifying about the look in Sirius's eyes then, something that spoke of the family history of madness and a revelry in dark magic. Bucky'd always dismissed Sirius's claims of coming from a family like that because he'd never seen it in him. He believed him now.

"Wait, you fellas fought in Grindlewald's war?" One of the cronies asked.

Bucky turned his head just enough to look at the guy and raised his eyebrows, still hoping he came off as relaxed. He knew enough that if this confrontation devolved into a fight, he was at a distinct disadvantage. He might get one good punch in if he caught the first by surprise but they'd start slinging spells and he'd be outed for sure then.

Leader-man was staring up at Sirius and every so often flicking his gaze towards Bucky. Finally, he shook his head and stammered, "Uh, no—no."

Sirius nodded, a maniacally smug look on his face as he nodded. "That's what I thought. We'll be leaving now." He lowered his wand and glanced over. "Come on Bucky. Oh, and pick up those coins. Our new friend here's going to pay for our drinks." He patted the fella on the cheek a few times, the last being more like a slap. "Isn't that right?"

Leader-man swallowed audibly and nodded.

"Good boy."

Bucky did as he was told, grabbing the few coins from the table, and followed Sirius out of the pub. They were quiet for half a block as they strode along, Bucky's frantic heartbeat the only sound in his ears. He couldn't have even told someone if they were being followed or not. Sirius glanced back once or twice. Finally, when his heartbeat started to slow, Bucky realised he had a lot of questions for his partner.

"So, what does a Reductor Curse do to body parts?"

"Blows them apart. Blood and muscle and sinew just... splat. Everywhere."

Bucky didn't want to think any more about that and asked, "What was that back there? I've never seen you look so..."

"Mad?" Sirius asked, laughing. "Yeah, I sort of channelled my cousin Bellatrix for that. Madest bitch I know. Knew. Whatever."

"And the condescending slapping? And paying for our drinks? A little over the top, wasn't it? How do you know they aren't going to come after us?"

"Oh, for that I was channelling dear old Mum. She was really good at condescending to the unwashed masses. I think I scared him enough that they won't follow. Sorry about the whole thing, and you know, about attributing you to a war that wasn't your own and all, I just... I forgot about Rappaport's law."

Bucky slowed to a stop at the subway entrance they were walking by. A train to Brooklyn would hopefully lose any tail they had. He was ready to call it a night. "And what's that?"

"Basically the magical–non-magical segregation law here. We aren't supposed to fraternize with Muggles. It'll get repealed in '65 but..."

"Maybe we should stick to Muggle bars from now on?"

"Yeah. I just wanted you to experience my side of things a bit, I guess. Getting roughed up isn't the best selling point for firewhisky, though."

"The music and the whisky were good." He tucked his hand into his trouser pocket and rocked back on his heels. "You know, I've seen racist bullshit. Seen prejudice. Worked with men—and women—who'd experienced it. That's the first time I've experienced it myself." His eyes caught on the _No Coloreds_ sign in the window of the shop across the street. He shook his head. "You said it's not as bad in the future, right?"

Sirius glanced up at the sign as well. "Yeah. Not perfect... but not like it is now." He sighed and turned back to Bucky. "Here, let me fix your sleeve. Can't have you going home to the Mrs like that."

"I don't live with—"

"That's right! You don't. You should! You. Should. Ask her!" He teased as he flicked his wand at the ripped seam, fixing it back as neat as it was.

Bucky rolled his eyes and chuckled, "Yeah, yeah." They made plans to meet up the following afternoon for lessons and parted ways after Sirius enlarged and returned Bucky's box of things. He Disapparated with a quiet pop in the empty subway stairwell, leaving Bucky alone. He looked down into the dark, thinking about the train ride home before he followed the steps back up to the street and started walking. It didn't take long before he was standing at the base of one of Stark's buildings, the only one Bucky cared about at all. The one Peggy lived in.

He shuffled about on the sidewalk for a few minutes before venturing in. He bypassed the elevator and headed for the stairs.

* . * . *

There was music playing quietly in the living room when Peggy answered the door. She didn't open it completely, leaving her hand to rest on the side of the door as she looked him over. "Bucky? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Peg, I just..." he bit his lip feeling the nervousness creep up his spine. "I should probably go..."

"Nonsense, come in. You're already here." She opened the door and ushered him in, taking his box of things from him and setting it on the foyer table. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Once inside and settled with a cup of tea, Bucky recounted his experience at the magical speakeasy and the near-miss of the fight. He brought up Sirius asking for lessons and asked her outright to confirm that he was trying to join SHIELD too.

"Yes," she answered. "He's tired of the disrespect he gets at SSR—not that I blame him, I wholeheartedly commiserate with him regarding that—but we couldn't just hire him as an agent without the same examinations we put everyone else through. The only portion he failed was the weapons handling. It's no wonder he came to you for help, seeing as you passed that section with the highest marks of all our recruits so far."

Bucky looked down at his empty teacup and shrugged off the praise.

The radio announcer mentioned that they had one last block of songs before they'd be signing off for the night and hoped the listeners would make the best of them. The first to come on was a slower song from earlier in the decade, perfect for closing out a night of Lindyhop. He stood and looked over at Peggy, holding out his hand for her. "Dance with me?"

She seemed reluctant but licked her lips and stood, placing her hand in his. He led her around the small open floor space in the opulent living room and tried not to think about anything but the sound of the music in his ears and the feel of the woman he loved in his arms. The song transitioned into a Lena Horne love song and Bucky hummed along with it, singing the simple lyrics along with the recording. As the song was coming to a close he stepped back, slipped his hand into his pocket and plucked his mother's engagement ring from there. He took a deep breath and knelt, looking up at Peggy. She was already smiling.


	4. Unspoken Accomplishments

**Unspoken Accomplishments**

 _Peggy had one mission left: passing down her legacy to a protégé worthy of it._

Pairing: Peggy & Hermione  
Rating: general  
Warnings: none  
Tropes: Coworkers (SHIELD), Mentor/Protégé, AU – Repealed Statute of Secrecy  
Words: 1,180  
Original Release Date: 15 Aug 2018  
Square: N1 - "I know my value. Anyone else's opinion doesn't really matter."

* * *

Peggy stood in the back of the SHIELD intake classroom observing the newest recruits as well as the agent giving the orientation. This would be one of the last intake classes she would have a hand in, as she planned to retire soon. There was something particularly special about this class, however.

Two years ago, the world was rocked by the revelation that magic was real and had been around for a long time. They had their own secret world hidden in plain sight of the 'normal' one. Peggy had known that things in this world were not normal for a long time now. After all, she'd seen the only successful creation of a Supersoldier and witnessed the harnessing of alien tech all the way back in the forties. The strange and fantastical things she'd seen since then with SSR and SHIELD were numerous and the revelation of magic hadn't even interrupted her day when it first went public. It was just one more thing to manage.

This class, though, had a single magical recruit. Hermione Granger, age 23. British expatriate. One of the major participants of the Second Wizarding War. A war that threw the magical world into the international spotlight.

Peggy had reached out to all of the named participants of legal age inquiring if they would like to apply their special skills towards a productive goal, protecting the world from paranormal and superhuman threats. Only one had been interested but when she reached out to Peggy, she asked if she could have a few years to finish her education and regroup. Of course, Peggy had said yes to however much time she needed. She understood the toll war took on a young mind; she herself had enlisted in the British Royal Military six months after her eighteenth birthday.

The agent leading the orientation paused to allow the group to ask questions. Granger raised her hand almost instantly. The questions that followed—read from notes taken in the margins of her orientation paperwork—were well-thought out and pointed, specifically in regards to how civil rights were handled both within SHIELD and as a power in the world stage. After the fifth question had been answered someone else raised their hand.

"What's included in the benefits package and do we get holiday pay?" The man asked in a bored drawl.

Peggy glanced at the floor and rubbed the back of her neck in an attempt to hide her reaction. If that man had qualified for the field, that question alone was enough for her to demote him to clerical work. An attitude like that wasn't needed when other agents may entrust their lives to his hands. The orientation agent answered his question with just as much poise and respect as she'd offered Granger. At least the decision to place this agent as an instructor had been a good one.

When she called for a restroom and snack break, Peggy waited for Granger to stand and stretch her back before approaching her. "Miss Granger?"

The young woman smiled and met her eyes, "Director Carter?"

"Oh," Peggy laughed a little, "In name only, anymore. I gave that position up almost twenty years ago. I'm too old for the job these days. Please, call me Peggy. Or Agent Carter if you're not comfortable on a first-name basis."

"First names are fine. I'm Hermione."

"It's a pleasure to meet you in person, Hermione. Would you take a short walk with me?" she asked, gesturing to the door that led out to the main corridor. Hermione nodded and followed. Peggy didn't speak until the door to the classroom had closed shut and they'd walked a few yards from the door. "I've looked over your intake tests. You scored very highly for fieldwork. Is that the position you're interested in pursuing?"

"Isn't that why you reached out to me to begin with?"

"Initially, yes." She paused to gather her thoughts. "When we asked you to do the field and obstacle course without magical means, you scored moderately high in most areas. When we asked you to retake them utilizing your magic, you scored off the chart, especially in particular areas. Those marks qualify you to be more than just a field agent. You'd still be considered an Agent of SHIELD but you'd be working with even more classified and potentially dangerous threats."

Hermione nodded as they continued to stroll down the empty corridor. "What sort of work would that be?"

"Espionage, for the most part. I'm reluctant to use the word assassin, as you've expressed a strong objection to killing, but you might work with other specialists with that moniker."

The young woman didn't answer and Peggy found it admirable that she took the time to think about the offer rather than outright reject it. She stopped walking and faced Peggy to look her in the eye. "Were you ever a field agent, Peggy? Or were you just a founder and director? When I first started looking into SHIELD that was one of the questions I could never find a satisfying answer to."

"Well spotted," Peggy said, smiling at her. "I was an agent, both with the SSR and for many years as a founder of SHIELD. At the time we didn't have separate titles for field agents and specialists but I worked with the most classified projects. Some of the most dangerous threats."

"But not an assassin?"

"Are you asking if I've killed?"

"Yes," Hermione answered bluntly.

"I have. Most of which were in self-defence. I worked with others to detain more criminals than I killed."

"And you can live with those lives taken?"

"Yes," Peggy said. She watched this young woman's face, whom despite spending years trying to find herself seemed to be more conflicted than before. "I've lived a fulfilling life. It's been a hard road but I feel like I've accomplished a great many good things. I've made a change for the better."

Hermione looked down at her hands; she was picking at her cuticles. Peggy made a mental note to work on tells when they started actually training even if Hermione chose not to become a specialist.

"Isn't it hard, though? To not be lauded for your accomplishments?"

Peggy smiled. There had been plenty of times when she would have wanted the accreditation of her achievements, especially as a young woman in a male-dominated field, but as she'd grown older the yearning to prove herself had waned. She knew exactly where Hermione was coming from. "I know my value and the value of my work. Anyone else's opinion doesn't really matter." She patted Hermione on the arm and turned, heading back to the orientation classroom. "You don't have to make the decision now. In any case, no matter what you decide, I'd like to work as your mentor. Is that all right?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes, I think I'd appreciate that. I feel like you have a lot you could teach me."

Peggy agreed. She had a feeling mentoring the first Magical SHIELD Operative would be one of her greatest accomplishments.


	5. Man Out of Time

**Man Out of Time  
**

 _Agent Granger helps Steve get acclimated to the future. And then there were aliens._

Pairing: Hermione & Steve  
Rating: teen  
Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence  
Tropes: Coworkers (SHIELD), hits stations of canon for the end of CA:TFA and The Avengers, AU – Repealed Statute of Secrecy  
Words: 6,627  
Original Release Date: 12 Oct 2018  
Square: N3 - Free Space

* * *

Steve opened his eyes and blinked a few times to clear the grit of sleep from them. The ceiling looked weird. Where was he? The last thing he could remember was the Valkyrie and crashing into the ocean. Was this heaven? He doubted it. He could hear a baseball game. He recognised a play and the names they said—except—some of those guys had enlisted, others had been drafted. The radio was playing an old game.

He sat up and looked around. The window was open but the noise of the city street wasn't nearly as loud as he would expect. There wasn't a smell from the hot asphalt or the bricks. The door opened and a woman stepped in. She spoke English but he couldn't identify the accent. "Morning. Or should I say afternoon?"

"Where am I?" he asked.

She answered, "You're in a recovery room in New York City," but there was something about how she hesitated slightly that seemed to indicate that she wasn't being honest. Her smile was friendly enough but everything about her screamed wrong. Imposter. Her hair was past regulations, her tie was too wide, her breasts—Jesus—even the shape of those were wrong, what the hell? He looked around, listening intently to the soft sound of traffic out the window and the baseball game on the radio.

"Where am I, really?" he asked again.

She gave him a brief, fake smile. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"The game. It's from May 1941, I know 'cuz I was there."

Her eyes widened and the smile she wore slipped from her face as she realized the ruse was up. He stood.

"Now I'm going to ask you again, where am I?"

She was visibly nervous but she didn't fidget. "Captain Rogers—"

"Who are you?" he shouted.

The door behind her flew open and two armed men, in uniforms similar to HYDRA came in, weapons pointed at him. He snapped to action, punching and flipping them into the wall. They both went through it instead. He jumped through the hole they made and quickly scanned the new scene in front of him. Spotting the door, he ran for it even as more armed men poured out of it.

He did just enough to disable them without killing them, hopefully, and then he was rushing down the corridor and looking for stairs or some way out of the building. Another group went down before a single voice called out behind him and it stopped him in his tracks.

"Captain Rogers! Steve—"

That voice, that accent. No one else could have got him to stop, except maybe Colonel Phillips. He turned, her name already on his lips, "Peggy?"

But after a second's glance, he knew it wasn't Peggy even at this distance. Sure, she had dark hair pulled up to regulation and her silhouette was right but her shoes weren't the sensible things that he'd seen Peggy wear.

"Please, let me explain?" she asked. "Come into my office, Captain." She gestured behind her.

He looked around at the armed men laying around his feet and the corridor. He'd heard an announcement go off, a call to arms he'd thought, but now it was stopped. Had she called it off? Finally, wary but curious, he nodded. "Where am I? Who are you?"

She smiled a little. "My name is Hermione Granger and I am an agent of SHIELD. You're in one of our multi-use facilities in New York City. If you'll follow me, I'll tell you more." Her accent shifted when she answered him. It was still British but she no longer sounded like Peggy.

She turned and walked away presuming he'd follow her. He debated against it for spite but decided she might actually give him more information if he cooperated. She'd answered his question the first time, unlike the other woman. He followed reluctantly.

She led him to a spacious office that overlooked the city and he walked straight to the windows and looked out in shock. The skyline, the entire city, looked different. Wrong. Unfamiliar. "What...?" he couldn't articulate what he wanted to ask as he stared out at the city. It was New York, he recognised the Chrysler and Empire State buildings in the distance, but it wasn't at the same time. He turned and pinned Granger with a glare that hoped expressed how much he wanted an explanation.

She gestured to one of the two blue armchairs in front of her desk before she took the one closest to her. He supposed that her sitting on this side of the desk was an attempt at not being seen as a superior. He didn't know if she was or not. As far as he was concerned she was an enemy combatant until he confirmed otherwise. He pulled the chair she'd indicated for him back so he wasn't too close to her and sat down. "What is SHIELD?"

"SHIELD is an intelligence agency founded by Howard Stark and Peggy Carter in 1949," she answered first. He narrowed his eyes at her. She continued without being prompted beyond that. "It's 2011. You were... for lack of a better word, asleep, for sixty-six years."

His breath left him in an undignified huff. He opened his mouth to ask how but even the word seemed too much. Finally, he nodded, like it wasn't the worse thing in the world and said, "I had a date."

She smiled but this time it was sad and full of sympathy. "Yes, Peggy told me about that once. I think it was the only time I've ever heard of her sharing that. She's an intensely private person."

He swallowed and as much as he wanted to focus on all the other, more important things, he couldn't help but ask, "Peggy's still alive? Where is she?"

Her smile faded. "She retired in 2006 and moved to DC to be with her daughter and grandchildren. Last year, Evelyn had her admitted to a nursing home when..." she hesitated and glanced away from him, upset, "...when Peggy was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. It's a—"

"I know what it is." Steve's mind whirled. Daughter. Grandchildren. Alzheimer's. He had the urge to get up and punch something but he knew it wouldn't help anything. He needed to redirect the conversation away from Peggy. "And Stark?"

Agent Granger looked back at him. "Howard Stark and his wife died in a car crash about twenty years ago, unfortunately. Their son, Tony, is... difficult. He's a genius but he's troubled. A wild card. He's a consultant of SHIELD but not part of the agency in any official capacity. I'll get you more information about him later."

"What is it, though?"

"SHIELD? Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. We're a new iteration of SSR. We deal with everything but mostly paranormal and superhuman threats."

"Paranormal and superhuman?" he questioned.

"Human experimentation, ring any bells?" She asked, quirking up one of her eyebrows. "Though the definition of paranormal is rather broad. It includes things like magic."

"Magic?"

"Yes. Magic's been a part of the world since the beginning but the magical world went into hiding in the seventeenth century. The Statute of Secrecy was broken in 2000 and officially repealed in 2002." She sat back in her chair and pulled a thin black dowel-looking item out of her right sleeve. "I'm a witch and this is my wand. With it, I can do a wide array of offensive, defensive, and healing spells. Pretty much anything you can imagine, barring a few major things, can be done with a wand." She slipped it back into what looked like a holster on her arm before clasping her hands and resting them on her knees. She sat quietly, just watching him. It took him longer than it should have to realise she was giving him a moment to process and to ask questions.

He also leaned back, not as worried as he had been about this being a strange HYDRA plot. She hadn't refused to answer any of his questions and she seemed forthcoming enough. He didn't want to believe her about the fact that he'd somehow survived scuttling the Valkyrie into the ice and water but the skyline beyond her window was major evidence for her case. He supposed if she was a witch she could be playing with his mind, showing him a world that didn't exist, a future that wasn't real. He didn't get that vibe from her though. He trusted her. _Sixty-six years_. Jesus.

"Are we still at war?" He finally asked, returning his gaze to her from where he'd let it slip to study the skyline again. He paid closer attention to her now that he didn't feel quite as overwhelmed. She had dark hair and eyes and though the skin around her mouth was smooth, she had a few lines at the corner of her eyes. She was pretty but not out of the park like Peggy had been. Christ, he wanted to talk to Peggy.

"Not the same one you were in, no. We won that one. There have been others since then. Nothing as grand as a world war but then again, after what the Americans did to end the last one in '45, others are reluctant to anger the Giant."

"The Americans? Not the Allies?"

"Oh, I'm sure the American president at the time consulted with the other Heads of State. But FDR's successor, Truman, was the one to make the final decision."

His skin broke out into gooseflesh. Something bad must have happened for her to differentiate like that. "What did we do?"

"They dropped two atomic bombs on two non-military-strategic cities in Japan. Killed roughly 200,000 civilians."

He closed his eyes and shook his head the slightest bit, disappointed and disheartened by that staggering amount of lost lives. Civilian lives. "My God."

Granger nodded and looked down.

Steve jerked to his feet when the door to her office slammed back into the wall where it stuck, the doorknob caught in the drywall. A man in a black trenchcoat wearing an eyepatch stood in the doorway. Granger turned slightly in her seat to look from the doorknob to the man before giving him an indifferent, annoyed look. She made a quick motion, a simple flick of her arm, but suddenly her wand was in her hand and she was pointing it at the damaged wall. Another flick, a flash of light, and the wall was completely repaired.

The man pointed at her as she put away her wand again. "You and I are going to have a conversation later that you won't enjoy. How come I wasn't alerted the second he left his room?"

"I suppose it's because one of the men who was supposed to alert you was taken down, along with fifteen others, in less time than it takes for the lift to get to this floor. I figured an honest approach was best after that," she answered him. "Captain Rogers, this is Nick Fury, the current Director of SHIELD."

He paused to nod his head in Steve's direction, and then asked Granger another question, "How much did you tell him?"

"Everything he's asked about. I've informed him of the date and some of the many changes over the years."

He frowned but nodded. He turned to look at Steve. "This is probably a bit overwhelming, huh? I've got a place you can go, called the Retreat, where you can relax and learn about the future at your own pace."

Granger apparently didn't seem to like this plan of action because she stood and faced Fury, crossing her arms over her chest. "You're going to send him to the Retreat? Alone? Isolating him isn't going to help him acclimate. He needs to go through demobilization, at the very least. Routine. Stability. He needs someplace as familiar as we can make it for him."

"We don't have anything set up—"

"I do," she said. She reached behind her and picked up a folder off of her desk and handed it to Fury.

"When did you have time to do this? I thought you had been on emergency vacation the last two days."

"I took vacation time to handle the matter personally, as the Barnes Protocol dictated."

"The Barnes Protocol?" Steve asked, interrupting her glaring contest with Fury even as Fury flipped through the contents of the folder she handed him.

"Set up by Director Carter herself in the event that an MIA agent is found alive and returns home."

Steve closed his eyes at hearing the familiar name, wishing he'd been allowed on the rescue or recovery mission to retrieve Bucky. Instead, he and the tactical team had needed to act quickly in taking the fight to Schmidt or the Japanese wouldn't be the only ones to have had an atom bomb dropped on them in 1945.

"How come I've never heard of this?" Fury asked her.

"Considering Director Carter was my mentor and passed the instructions on to me directly, I would feel violated had you known about it." She tipped her head and raised her eyebrows in challenge at the older man.

He pursed his lips and nodded, flipping the folder shut and handing it back to her. "Come to me next time. And stop by Coulson's office to get the cell phone and other things he has for Rogers."

She smiled and took the folder from him. "Will do."

He looked back at Steve. "Captain Rogers," he said by way of goodbye and then he turned and left.

Granger smiled and looked over at Steve. "Well. Let's get you settled into your new flat."

* . * . *

The apartment that Agent Granger had set up for him was peculiar. On the outside, the building—and from what he could tell, the apartments—were relatively square. The inside of the apartment, however, was a long narrow rectangle, laid out like a tenement. It reminded him of the apartment he'd shared with Bucky before the war except each room was much larger than he was used to and there were more windows that let in a lot of light. There wasn't any clutter or anything to say the space was lived in. It felt sterile.

When Granger had handed over the keys she'd expressed a hope that he would feel at home here.

Aside from the typical things he expected to find—the bed, the living room furniture—there were new things like the modern fridge and the oven. He even had his own washing machine and dryer. There was a full bathroom just for him with an enormous clawfoot tub and a separate shower. He'd been shocked at having a personal telephone just for him in the apartment as well as a multitude of electronic devices that he had yet to fiddle with. Alongside a modest selection of clothes, including jeans, that were already in the closet, there were two bags of luggage that had been provided for him by Agent Coulson.

Steve had ignored all of the new gadgets to wander the streets of the city for a few hours, relearning the bits of Manhattan he'd known before. When it was sufficiently late enough he returned home and tried to sleep.

He woke up twice from nightmares about the cold and moved to the floor because there was something wrong with the bed. It was too soft and it felt like he was sinking into it like he was going to be swallowed up. If it weren't for how warm the blankets were it would have reminded him of the icy water rushing into the cockpit of the Valkyrie.

Agent Coulson had given him a cell phone, a personal telephone which he was meant to carry with him at all times. It lit up when he pressed the button on the side but he didn't have anyone to call so he just tucked it in his pocket in the morning when he got dressed. On the kitchen table were two envelopes and a stack of books and documents that he'd bypassed the night before. One of the envelopes was small and had a stack of cash inside, though it looked a bit different than what he was used to. The second envelope was document sized and on the front of one was printed _Howling Commandos_. He wasn't sure what or who the Howling Commandos were but he had a feeling he wouldn't like what was in there. He set that one aside: he would look at it soon but not yet. The stack of books had a small note stuck to the top that said: _Reading catch-up. Fiction, non-fiction, and manuals for most of the new electronics in your flat. - HG_

He shuffled through the books and noticed manuals for the fridge, the oven—did she think he didn't know how to use an oven?—the washer and dryer, along with books for the television, the personal computer, and both telephones. He set the entire stack on one of the empty bookshelves in the front room.

He didn't know what he was supposed to do now. He didn't have an objective aside from maybe 'get acclimated' and learn about everything he'd missed. Steve sighed and decided he needed to get some fresh air. He pocketed the keys he'd left on the bedside table and left the apartment. This time instead of trying to find the ways the city was the same and map the differences, he just wandered.

His wandering feet led him onto the train to Brooklyn and it wasn't until he felt the thud-clack of rails under him that he realised what he was doing. The familiar sound of the train on the tracks rang ominously in his head. Would the Brooklyn he knew and loved and remembered be as lost to him as Bucky was?

When he was off the train he took the streets that he knew would take him home. His heart ached when he saw that home was no longer there. The tenement building where he'd shared an apartment with Bucky was gone and replaced with something newer. He sighed and walked on. Trying to blend old memories with new ones as he went.

He made his way to Green-wood to visit his parents' graves and then he went looking for the gym he and Bucky used to frequent. He found it, though it had changed hands a number of times and looked somewhat different. He decided he'd come back with some of the workout clothes he'd found in the closet and pay for a membership later. It was enough to know it was still there. That there was at least one thing that was familiar.

He didn't see any automats around but he did stop at a diner to eat. He was shocked at the prices and with the amount of food brought to him but he'd been given plenty of cash so he assumed the higher prices were normal.

Once back at his new apartment, Steve emptied his pockets, setting the keys, cash, and mobile phone on the nightstand. He pressed the button on the side of the phone but unlike before, it didn't light up. He flipped it over and studied it. He saw where it could probably come apart but he wasn't sure if he needed to in order to fix whatever was wrong with it. He sighed and went searching for the manual. With a quick perusal through the booklet, he returned to the luggage Agent Coulson had given him and found the charger. He plugged the phone up, leaving it on the chest of drawers opposite his bed.

He decided to take a shower before bed and stood under the hot spray for much longer than he probably should have. When he came out his phone had lit up again. He looked at the screen, just in case there was any pertinent information on there and found he had a missed call, a voicemail, and a text. All from the same number. He found the text first.

 _You can also contact me this way if you want. I'll call back tomorrow. - HG_

It wasn't entirely intuitive but Steve found the flashlight, voicemail, and camera all within quick succession.

"Hi Captain Rogers, this is Agent Granger though you can call me Hermione if you'd like. I just wanted to check in with you, see how you were liking your flat and if there was anything I could do for you. See if you had any questions. I have the upcoming weekend off if you're interested in hanging out or just want to talk. I didn't mention it, and please don't think I meant for you to starve, but the cupboards and fridge are stocked. I didn't know what you'd like so I selected a wide variety. Anything you know you don't like we can donate." There was a short pause like she was contemplating something before she said, "I'll talk to you later then."

Steve tapped the button on the screen to disconnect from voicemail and then pressed the power button to sleep the device. He left it plugged up. He supposed he would talk to her tomorrow. He pulled the blankets off the bed and made a pallet on the floor. He laid down and closed his eyes and tried not to think.

* . * . *

Hermione couldn't help but let her gaze follow Steve as he wandered around the control centre of the helicarrier. They'd talked on the phone two or three times a month and met for coffee a few times in the six months since he'd come out of the ice. She thought he was coping moderately well but he didn't like to talk about it. She'd understood the urge to bottle things up after her own war. It was Peggy who had helped her open up.

Agent Romanoff approached and flicked open the app on Hermione's terminal that was running the facial recognition software for Agent Barton. "It's not going to find him in time, is it?" she asked in a quiet whisper.

"I don't know."

"Do you think you'll be able to break the mind control if that's what it is?" She tilted her head to make eye contact and Hermione felt her heart thump in sympathy. Agent Romanoff rarely worked with other agents but when she did it was always with Barton.

"I'll try my best."

Romanoff's lips gave a little quirk like she didn't know how to smile. Director Fury called her name and asked her to show Dr Banner to the laboratory. Hermione looked over the data on her screen before minimizing the app with Agent Barton's face on it.

When they finally got a hit on the cameras it was for Loki's face, rather than Barton's. Hermione relayed the information to Agent Romanoff as she was the team leader on this assignment and returned to monitoring her station.

Sometime later, after night had fallen and Loki had been apprehended in Germany, someone flagged permission for an incoming Quinjet to land on the helicarrier. She heard another agent give clearance but before she could even start the diagnostics for the returning jet the entire helicarrier listed to the side and chaos broke loose.

"All hands to stations!"

"External detonation, engine three is down!"

Hermione worked at her terminal stabilizing her section of the ship, and locking down the damaged sectors to prevent crew members from accessing dangerous areas. There was an animalistic roar so loud she felt it in her chest. "Granger," Director Fury's voice came to her through the comms device in her ear. "I need you to subdue the Hulk."

She blanched. Even Romanoff seemed afraid of the Hulk and Hermione didn't think Romanoff had been afraid of much in her life. "What do you want me to do? Sing him a lullaby?" she sassed back.

"If that's what it takes to stop him or get him off this ship, then yes. I don't even care if you're off-key."

Hermione took a deep breath and left the bridge, jogging towards the beastly roars. It didn't take her long to find men fleeing from the direction she assumed the Hulk to be in. She arrived on the scene just in time to see the blond Asgardian, Thor, fly into the green monster to stop him from attacking Romanoff. Hermione paused, kneeling down next to her. "Are you all right?"

She nodded jerkily and that was good enough for Hermione. She turned, drew her wand and followed the sound of crunching metal and beastly roaring.

What she saw when she finally got to the end of the trail of destruction was the two of them tossing one another around. She tried the easy stuff first, " _Stupefy_!" The spell seemed to bounce off of him like they would Hagrid. "Damn, worth a try." She sighed, "Hey!" she yelled to get his attention, "Cave troll!"

The giant green man turned and growled in anger at her. She swallowed and nodded, "Right, that was the plan... okay." When he charged her she Apparated. She had aimed for ten feet back, behind a pile of munitions cases but ended up twenty feet over and eight feet up in the air; she'd not made up for the fact that the helicarrier was still losing altitude. She dropped like a stone. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw monster-green heading her way. Searching for something she could potentially throw at him she spotted Thor's hammer. "Accio hammer!" It flew in her direction and she aimed the projectile at the Hulk's head. It only stopped him for a moment but it was enough time to roll out of reach and retake her feet.

Thor launched himself at the Hulk again and Hermione tried another spell, the illusion of fire this time, aimed at the Hulk's feet. She made the flame more blue than orange, hoping that the scientist mind of Dr Banner would understand the inherent danger of it. It worked—to an extent. Thor was also caught up in the illusion and his instinctive reaction to seeing fire caused him to fling himself back and against the glass behind them. When he spotted her he got an odd look in his eye before he darted away from behind Banner.

"Off the ship," Hermione mumbled to herself as she made the flame encircle the Hulk now that Thor was out of the way. He backed up a few more steps until his back was close to the glass. He roared at her and in sympathy—as she knew what jumping through a window felt like—she also vanished the glass panes directly behind him. When he felt the wind at his back he turned. Hermione added a Hot-Air Charm to increase the illusion and took a step forward, casting the fake fire closer to him.

Before she could force him to jump, Thor's hammer went flying over her head and into the Hulk's chest which knocked him backwards out of the helicarrier. The instant he passed anything to grab a hold of, Hermione ran to the open window and looked out, clutching her wand tight against the rush of cold, thin air. She watched and when it looked like he was getting close to the ground she cast an Arresto Momentum at him. He stopped, suspended in mid-air. She could just make out his roar over the wind noise. She cancelled to let him drop the rest of the way to the ground.

She sighed and backed up. "Did you call your hammer back to you?" She turned, asking Thor. He waved it at her even as he panted and she nodded and replaced the glass she'd vanished.

"You're a sorceress," Thor said.

"Yes," she agreed, "Though I use the word witch."

"My brother is a sorcerer. As is our mother. It can be a noble art if not used for tricks."

"Thanks, I think," she said. "I need to—"

Just then Director Fury called over her comms, "Granger, report."

She reached up and pressed the activate button on the device. "Hulk is off the ship, sir."

"Good, get to your crash station."

She turned to tell Thor her orders and to bring him with her to find him a place to be safe in the event of a crash but when she said as much he should his head, "We need to check on Loki."

She wasn't particularly keen on that idea but she nodded, "All right, this way." She led him down to the Detainment level and he rushed ahead of her, shouting as he did so. She heard Loki before she saw him, gloating about Thor falling for something. Hermione pressed her back against the wall and peeked around the door frame. Loki was dressed in black and green armoured robes. Thor brought his hammer

down onto the glass of the cage he was in. It cracked but the release mechanism registered the hit and detached, ready for the heavy glass cage to be dropped.

"The humans think us immortal. Should we test that?" Loki said, strolling towards the control panel. Hermione forced herself to keep breathing quietly as she watched. She needed to know what he was capable of before running in blind. That was one of the many lessons time, experience, and Peggy Carter had taught her.

She heard a thunk and Agent Coulson say in an unreasonably calm voice, "Move away, please."

Hermione swore under her breath. He'd come through a different doorway and she hadn't seen him. She left her spot, moving down the outside corridor to get closer to the door behind Coulson. Maybe if she got close enough she could provide back up.

She heard the unmistakable sound of someone gasping in shock and pain and then the collapse of a body. Thor shouted again. She swore again even as she crept closer. The drop door opening and the wind noise it caused blocked any other attempt at listening. She moved further into the room. She could see Coulson propped against the wall, could just make out the smell of blood and something burning in the air. The sound and sight of the glass cage dropping with Thor inside added a shake to her hands. How could one's own brother so casually attempt homicide like that? She pivoted back out of sight as the drop door closed.

"You're going to lose," Coulson said. She could hear how reedy his voice was. With her free hand, she flipped open the snap on her potions belt next to her pistol, digging around until she found the uniquely-shaped bottle that she knew was her dittany. As soon as it was clear, she needed to be ready to administer first aid. There was a loud zapping noise and the smell of something burning increased. "So that's what it does," Coulson seemed to mutter to himself.

She looked around the corner once, saw that Loki was gone—through a melted hole in the wall?—and rushed to Agent Coulson. She didn't bother with preliminaries and ripped his shirt open, buttons flinging everywhere.

"Didn't think you were interested in me like that, Granger," he teased, blood dripping from the corner of his grin.

She shook her head at him. "You're an idiot, do you know that?" He nodded and she uncorked the bottle of dittany. She poured it on the bloody, gaping wound in his chest and when it was starting to close, she focused on one of the healing spells she'd learned after the war. He closed his eyes.

When she was sure the wound was closed, she helped him stand. Before they'd taken two steps, her ears popped from the altitude drop but the swooping feeling in her stomach started to subside. "Do you think they got the engines working?" Coulson asked. He had his arm over her shoulders, leaning on her heavily. She would have much preferred to conjure him a stretcher and float him to the infirmary but he'd asked her not to. They were just to the stairs when Director Fury came down them.

"Sorry boss," he said, "The guy rabbited."

"He's lost a lot of blood, sir," Hermione informed the Director. He nodded and radioed for help. After Fury helped her get Coulson to the infirmary she walked with him back up to the bridge. Steve and Tony Stark met them there.

Stark looked a little wide-eyed at her and she glanced down to see that she still had Coulson's blood on her hands. She pulled her wand from her pocket and syphoned it off one and then the other. When she was done she looked up first to Steve and then to Fury. "I want on the team you send after him, sir."

"What team? What do you mean 'going after him'?" Stark asked rapid-fire. "He played us; tore apart the beginnings of a team we already had."

"Thor had my back when I faced the Hulk and I watched his brother drop him in the detainment cage from 20 thousand feet up with the intention of killing him," Hermione said, turning to him. "If it killed him, I want to avenge him. If it didn't—"

"If it didn't he's one helluva tough cookie," Agent Barton said as he and Agent Romanoff entered the room.

Hermione looked him over and shared a glance with Romanoff, who nodded. "Good to see you, Agent Barton."

"Good to be back, kid." Turning to Director Fury, he asked, "We going after him, or what?"

"We're dead in the air up here. Communications are down. Locations of the Cube, Banner, Thor. I got nothing for you."

"Loki needs a power source, doesn't he?" Steve asked the group.

What followed was interesting to watch from an outsider's point of view. Stark had a very fast vocal brainstorming session with himself. Hermione had done something similar on occasion too but found it relatively fascinating listening to someone else go through it. When he was done, after concluding that Loki would be using the arc reactor in Stark Tower as his power source, he mumbled, "I need to work on my suit," and walked out of the bridge.

The remaining members of the group looked around one another before turning to leave the bridge as well. Hermione and Steve were the last ones out. In the corridor, she stopped once she got a look at his odd boots. "What are you—" her gaze travelled up from his boots to his legs and well-defined thighs,"—are those tights?"

"I, umm, yeah, well, Coulson—"

"Of course, it was Coulson," she rolled her eyes and retrieved her wand, holding it up in front of her. "Would you like a suit like SHIELD agents wear? With body armour?"

He seemed to contemplate the question for a moment before he gave a tentative, "Yes?"

She nodded and Transfigured his blue spandex into the typical black ensemble field agents wore. As a nod to his public persona, she added a light grey star to the chest piece. "How's that?" she asked.

He shifted, moving around in the new clothes to test the manoeuvrability and then nodded. "Nice, thanks."

"You're welcome."

* . * . *

Hours later, when the dust was settled, the alien threat dealt with, and most of their team gathered and resting, Steve set out in search of their missing member. He'd seen her work in tandem with Barton and Romanoff, seen her taking down the enemy with her wand and her pistol, switching between them as if both were a part of her. And even when Steve himself was exhausted and he could see the fight wearing down on all of them she had waved off recuperating and jogged away from them. It was only after she was out of sight that he thought to ask Romanoff where she was going.

Barton was the one to answer. "She's going to lend her talents to triage now. We'll have to go find her eventually. She'll keep going until she's dead on her feet if we don't reel her in."

And so after an hour of sitting around, lazily eating Shawarma and letting his body heal what wounds he'd sustained, Steve got some of the food to go and set out in search of Hermione.

He found her in one of the parks emergency workers had set up as a base of operations. She was just finishing up with a patient when he found her. She was wearing an apron over her SHIELD uniform and he could see a thin layer of concrete dust still coating her. She was syphoning the blood off her hands as he approached.

"Hermione?" She looked up and smiled when she saw him but it didn't stick. "I brought you some food. Barton said you'd keep working until you drop otherwise."

"Thanks," she said, "You can set it over—" she started to point to someplace away from her when he put it in her hands.

"You need to eat. You've saved a lot of lives both during the fight and after."

"Not nearly enough," she responded.

"You need to take care of yourself too."

She smiled at him and it lasted a little bit longer this time. She looked down at the food wrapped in her hands. "What is this? It smells good."

"Shawarma. It's pretty tasty."

She nodded and unwrapped the top of it to take a bite. Steve smiled and looked down, only feeling a little awkward just standing there watching her eat. She moaned like she was enjoying it and he looked up at her and asked. "Good?"

She nodded and grinned around the bite of food but didn't actually say anything until she'd swallowed. "Yes, it's very good." She took another bite.

Suddenly three groups of five people appeared in the open area to the left of them. Steve was immediately on guard, planting his feet to brace for whatever was happening now.

Hermione called out, "Harry!" and quickly rewrapped her food and rushed towards one of the fifteen people who had just arrived. "Not that I'm not glad to see you but what are you doing here?" she asked the man with messy black hair and glasses.

"The Minister deployed us as an aid for the City of New York," he said. He looked around, nodding at the still very active flow of emergency workers and survivors. "Looks like you need it. And you? I see someone's made sure to feed you. Have you taken a breather since the wormhole opened?"

"Steve's making sure I eat and have a break," she said, nodding. She took the moment to unwrap her food and take another small bite.

"Steve, huh?"

She seemed to choke the swallow down and she might have blushed but Steve couldn't tell from that angle. He took a step closer, sensing that she was about to make introductions. She turned to look at him and then back to her friend. "Auror Harry Potter, this is Captain Steve Rogers. Saviour of the Wizarding World meet the saviour of the... _whole_ world?"

Steve shook his head, denying the title, "Just doing my job," he said. He offered his hand for her friend to shake and nodded at him. "Nice to meet you."

"You too," Harry said.

"Potter!" someone called, turning all their attention to the new person. "What's the plan, sir?"

Harry nodded and waved absent-mindedly to them as he focused on his task. Steve turned back to Hermione to see her chewing another bite of her sandwich. After she swallowed she gave him an embarrassed little smile. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."


	6. Without a Backup Plan

**Without a Backup Plan  
**

 _Director Fury sends Hermione on a paranormal mission but when her magic fails her, she and her partner have to resort to the Muggle way of doing things. Not that she's complaining, really._

Pairing: Hermione & Steve  
Rating: teen  
Warnings: none  
Tropes: Coworkers (SHIELD), Post-Avengers, Huddling for Warmth, Slight UST, AU – Repealed Statute of Secrecy  
Words: 5,097  
Original Release Date: 17 Oct 2018  
Square: I4 - Huddling for Warmth

* * *

Hermione was sitting at her desk in her new office in the Triskelion checking over the reports and requests submitted to her by the few other Magical agents in her department when her phone beeped a notification for an incoming mission briefing. She pulled up the same information on the computer in front of her and started looking it over.

She didn't get through much of the first page before she was getting a video call from Director Fury. "Granger," she answered. "You're sending me to South Carolina?"

"I see you've already started reading, good. There's something strange going on. I'd like you to take a look at it."

"Am I getting a partner on this?"

"Yes, actually. Rogers."

Hermione's brow furrowed, "Rogers? Really? Are you expecting me to need a lot of muscle for this?"

"No but he's expressed an interest, so I thought I'd indulge him."

She wasn't sure if Nick meant Steve had wanted to work with her again or if he was interested in the more paranormal cases rather than the punch-and-shoot or infiltration sort of work that Rumlow and Romanoff did.

"Is he on the premises?"

"No, you'll have to coordinate with him. I've already sent him the briefing."

"Great. Is Quinjet Charlie-2500-Tango available?"

Fury quirked a brow. "You've requested that one before. You attached to it or something?"

"It's had the most anti-magical interference added to it so the power doesn't flicker while I'm piloting."

He nodded. "Right. I'll make sure it's available."

"Thanks." She closed the video connection and clicked back to her briefing to read through it before reaching out to Steve. When she was done, she grabbed her purse and headed upstairs to the atrium to Disapparate home so she could pack. It looked like it would be an overnight trip. On the walk upstairs, she sent a text to Steve, touching base with him and advising him to do the same.

An hour later, as she was finishing up the pre-flight checks on the Quinjet, Steve rang her.

"So, I was looking over the map of the state park we're going to and it doesn't look like there's much of a great place to land the jet," he said. There was a leading tone to his voice and she wondered what he was going to suggest.

"There's a helipad in Brevard, about twenty-five minutes off. I figured we can land there and hire a car."

"I was thinking... I mean, it's an overnight mission anyway, why don't we take my motorcycle?"

Hermione's eyebrows raised. The thought had merit. She hated hiring a car. "That sounds do-able."

"Great. How about we land in Asheville somewhere, make the ride down worth it?"

She turned and pulled up the navigation system on the Quinjet, zeroing in on the state park. "That's an hour away from our destination, though."

"Like I said, make the ride worth it."

She wondered if he was taking this mission less seriously because it wasn't one of those punch-and-shoot types. She supposed she could indulge him a little. "I... yes, we can do that."

"Great," he said again and then she heard the unmistakable sound of a motorbike roaring closer outside of the jet. She ended the call and stepped down the loading door to see Steve pull the bike to a stop.

"You were going to bring it even if I'd said no?" She asked when he cut the engine and stepped off to walk it up the loading door.

He shrugged. "I figured I might be able to talk you into it." He strapped the bike down for travel safety and set his rucksack and shield against the wall next to her small bag.

She took a deep breath and nodded to herself. This would be fine. She pressed the button to close the loading door and headed back to the cockpit.

Once they were in the air and headed south, Steve started up the conversation. "I was under the impression that you didn't go out on missions that much."

"I'm the Department Head for the division of magical agents, yes, but that doesn't mean I don't go on missions."

"You seem pretty young to be a department leader." He said, leaning back in his seat.

She flicked the mechanism on her seat to allow her to swivel to face him. "I was the first Magical agent hired at SHIELD, twelve years ago. I've got seniority. Besides, I'm older than you."

He snorted in amusement. "Excuse me? I'm ninety-four."

"Only according to your birth certificate. But you were frozen for sixty-six of those years. You didn't age during them. You're still only twenty-eight." She watched his face as she spoke, wondering if he was going to argue the point with her.

"You don't think I aged in the ice?"

"You weren't awake for it, right? If you were, you're handling insanity a lot better than I would." He shook his head and she continued, "When I was thirteen I was petrified—basically turned to stone—for twenty-three days. I wasn't awake. I didn't age."

"You were turned to stone? When you were thirteen?" He asked, incredulous.

"Oh, that was just one of the many near-death adventures I had in school."

"In school?" There was shock clear in his tone and wide-eyed expression.

She laughed. "Yes, in school. And out of. When we get back, I'll loan you my copy of Harry's biography. We had some... A lot happened during our school days."

"Harry? Right, you introduced me to him. You called him the saviour of the Wizarding World. Guess I didn't take that as straight as you meant it."

Hermione turned her chair to look back over the controls. "I received a SHIELD recruitment letter two months after the end of our war." He let the topic drop and they slipped into the generic conversation they typically had over coffee. It usually consisted of him talking about some of the new things he'd learned.

When they landed the Quinjet, they combined her bag (with its Undetectable Extension Charm, of course) with his and Hermione clipped the straps of it around her shoulders. Steve then tied the shield to the straps of his rucksack. It made Hermione feel a little like an All-American turtle despite the stealth paint job on it. With the motorbike out and the Quinjet locked and set to stealth mode, it was time to go.

"No helmets?" she asked as she plaited her hair and tucked it into the collar of her leather jacket.

"Don't trust me?"

"I've ridden a dragon and an invisible, flying meat-eating horse. I think I can handle a motorbike."

"Meat-eating horse, huh?" He nodded. "All right." He kickstarted the bike and Hermione climbed on the back, letting her hands press flat against his stomach. The bike rumbled and vibrated underneath them as they rode. She tried not to watch the speedometer, though the few times she glanced at it she wished she hadn't. Enjoying speed, whether on a broomstick or a motorbike, seemed to be a universally male thing. By the time, Steve was signalling and turning into the state park, Hermione was ready to be off the bike. Her insides had been vibrated uncomfortably for three-quarters of an hour and her face was numb from the cold wind. Her fingers and every part of her that had been pressed tightly up against Steve was pleasantly warm, however.

Unfortunately, the vibrations had affected her ability to stand and when she stepped off the motorbike she almost fell over if it hadn't been for Steve's quick reflexes. "Sorry, I guess I should have warned you," he said, giving her a bashful grin. "And here I was hoping my ride was smoother than a dragon."

"Oh, it was much nicer than a dragon considering I don't like—"

A park ranger had just walked up to them and cleared his throat.

"—flying," she said, finishing her sentence. She started to pull her SHIELD badge from her pocket.

"Sir, ma'am, the park is closed for the time being," he said, tucking his hands into his belt and brandishing his overweight belly in front of him like he deserved an award for it, "and I'm going to have to ask you to—"

"Yes, I understand that," she said, with just as much condescension in her voice as his. "We're with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. We're here to look into the matter that caused you to close the park. If you'd be so kind as to point us in the right direction, we'll get out of your hair."

She could see Steve's face over the man's shoulder and she couldn't determine what he was feeling from his pursed lips and clenched jaw.

The park ranger, however, was looking over her badge with a frown. "You're here to fix whatever them kids done magicked up with the trail then?"

She could hear the disdain for magic in his tone and forced a smile onto her face. "Yes, we're here to fix it."

"Good," he said, handing back her badge. "The weirdness starts just past the Devil's Kitchen." He pointed to some vague spot over her right shoulder."I'm fixing to close up shop for the night and head home, so unless you need somethin' from the shop..."

"No, I believe we have everything we need."

"All right then." He turned and nodded at Steve before strolling towards the log cabin office and gift shop.

When he was out of earshot, Hermione quirked her eyebrows at Steve, hoping he'd indulge her. "That tone and how you handled him. Did you get that directly from Peggy?"

She chuckled. "Maybe? How is she? I think you've visited more recently than I have," she said, turning to head in the direction of their destination.

She could just see him in her periphery as he looked down and his smile faded.

Before he could actually answer, she gave him an out. "I know. It's hard to talk about. So... the Devil's Kitchen! What do you think the devil likes to eat?"

"Let's hope it's something innocuous," he answered. As they approached the painted wooden sign with the name carved into it, Steve put his hand on her shoulder. "Let me get my shield from you." She stopped and waited for the weight of it to be removed from the bag where he'd tied it. "Should I lead?"

"I don't know, it's narrow. You might get stuck."

"Haha," he responded. She could almost hear him rolling his eyes at her as she descended the stairs.

The stairs heading down the narrow gap in the rock were metal, an upgrade from the wooden ones in the reference pictures in the briefing. They were steep and by the time she got to the bottom and the sharp ninety-degree turn in the rock it was very dark in front of her.

She lit her wand and held it out in front of her as she continued on the path. The briefing had reported dozens of people complaining about seeing strange sights, a general feeling of unease where previously there hadn't been one, and an unseasonable coldness. She turned once to get a glimpse of Steve, and although his shoulders were broad, he slipped through the passage just fine. After the main attraction of the Devil's Kitchen—that narrow, sharply turned path in solid rock—it transitioned into a simple dirt path that led along the side of a copse of trees before forking into different directions. The left went across a wooden boardwalk to an overlook, the right to a hiking trail that wound down through the trees.

She turned right and Steve followed. "Now that we're in the open, let me lead."

"Sure," she said, stepping to the side to allow him to move ahead of her. Hermione wasn't sure what to expect from the vague descriptions given in the briefing but she was looking out for anything as they followed the trail.

Night was falling as they moved through the woods and nothing seemed to catch Hermione's attention as paranormal. She was starting to feel the itchy feeling along her neck that something wasn't right but she couldn't pinpoint a source nor could she determine what exactly was causing it.

Something like being watched?

She felt something come down on her shoulder, like some weighty hand. She turned and in the twilight saw tall humanoid figures with sharp-clawed fingers. She must have shouted as she spun in a circle, unsure of what spell to cast to protect herself.

"Hermione!" Steve's voice said from farther up the trail. She couldn't see him any longer and the more she spun to try and get away from the shadowy figures around her, the more she lost track of where he was in comparison to her. This time when something touched her shoulders, two heavy hands locking her in place, it was accompanied by Steve's voice next to her ear. "You're fine, there's... wait, close your eyes."

"What?" she said, blinking rapidly but trusting him. She closed her eyes. The terrifying feeling of being watched and being surrounded didn't fade but Steve was right next to her. He wouldn't let the creatures get to her. "There're human-like creatures in the woods, they're going to attack us!"

"Shush, you're safe. I think you're hallucinating. The only things around us are trees. Oak trees that look like they've been painted black. There's something in the air. Can you smell it?" He gave her a moment to breathe deeply. "The metallic taste to it?"

She nodded and opened her eyes to look at him. What she expected to see—Steve and black trees—was not what she saw. Steve was there but elongated and taller than Hagrid, an army of slender, shadowy figures at his back with red gleaming eyes just waiting for her. She whimpered and closed her eyes.

"Are they not..." she started to say and shook her head, she knew the shadows were just trees. "Is the hallucinogen not affecting you?"

"I'm seeing a little bit of something out the corner of my eyes but I think my system's metabolizing it too fast. Can you conjure a gas mask?"

"A gas mask..." her mind was blank. She couldn't think. "I don't know. I'd have to look it up. I don't know a spell that'll do it, I'd don't know how they work and—"

"Hermione!" he said over her as he squeezed lightly at her upper arms, "Is there a spell that does the same thing? Something that will filter the air for you?"

"Oh! Yes!" She immediately pointed her wand and her face and cast a Bubble-Head Charm. The smell in the air changed instantly, leaving only the metallic taste still coating her tongue. She gave it a few moments to work and then opened her eyes. Steve looked normal but very close. It took a second longer to realise he was sharing the Bubble-Head Charm with her. His breath was wet and warm as it ghosted over her lips.

"Are you okay?" he asked. In the light of her wand, she could see the concern in his blue eyes.

"Yes. I—" she glanced past him to the trees, normal, spindly baby oak trees, painted a simple flat black across their trunks. She swallowed and nodded lightly. "Here," she took a step back, pulling her bubble of clean air away from him and casting the charm at his face so he needn't be so close to her. She looked around and didn't recognise any part of the trail they were on. "Did I venture off the path?"

"Not really, it just gets very thick here." He pointed past the black trees, "It heads off in that direction. Right before you screamed I had noticed the smell so I think it's getting stronger as we go."

"Okay," she said. "Then I guess we need to go that way."

He didn't move away from her as they walked and she wondered whether it was because she had the only torch or if he was worried for her. She was worried for herself. What if she had decided to cast something like the Fire-Making Charm and set the woods on fire? What would have happened if the hallucinogen had affected Steve?

She tried not to let her mind spiral through the what-ifs as she led them deeper along the trail. As they wound deeper into the woods, Hermione's fingers started to go numb. The chill in the air had turned much colder once the sun had gone down. She was thankful for the leather of her jacket and the thick socks she wore in her boots.

Steve squeezed her shoulder lightly and she paused. "There," he said, pointing over her shoulder towards a dark chasm that looked like another narrow passage of rock. "Do you feel the temperature difference? It's coming from there."

"A cave? I didn't think there were caves in this area. There was nothing in the briefing."

She felt him shrug beside her. He dug through the rucksack on her back and he pulled out an electric torch. "I'll lead again, I guess." He took a few steps and then stepped back twice, almost on top of her. "What the—"

Hermione had moved up next to him and flinched. The metallic smell was back and her wandlight was out. "What's going on?" She flicked her wand to reignite the _Lumos_ but nothing happened. She looked at Steve and then reached up and patted her own cheek. The Bubble-Head Charms were gone. "Magical dead zone," she said, trying to breathe shallowly even as she started to see black spots at the edges of her vision. "I'm useless," she said, tucking her wand away.

"Highly unlikely," he said. "Come on, the quicker we go through, hopefully, the quicker we find the source of the hallucinogen." He led the way through the narrow passage of rock and the sharp turn it made. Inside, the cavern didn't immediately open back up. Instead, it seemed to almost narrow further and even Hermione had to turn sideways to squeeze through. There was a machine hum that seemed to be coming from within. She stuck close to Steve since he had the only light source now. After worming their way through several more craggy spots the cave widened. They walked around a large wall of rock to find a dark pool of water. Thirty feet above the surface of the water there was a ledge. On the ledge was a machine, humming and occasionally chiming. There were levers and polished brass knobs and large glass canisters.

"Well, that's probably the source of the hallucinogen in the air," Steve said, looking up at it. "Do you think it's also causing the cold and the magical dead zone?" He looked at her. She focused on his face in the darkness and tried very hard not to notice the black swirling figures in her periphery.

"I don't know. The dead zone may just be a geological feature and whoever set up the machine up there just used it to their advantage." She glanced around in the dim light of his torch, "There's got to be a rope or something..." There looked to be a wider section on the other side of the wall that might lead up to the ledge. She skirted all the way around the edge of the small underground pond until she was on the other side of the wall from where they'd entered. She found what she was looking for. A knotted rope dangling from the upper ledge. She grabbed the rope and tugged it. It felt sturdy enough. She started climbing it. Two-thirds of the way up she realized that the rope went through a hole worn through the rock. She felt the rope move below her and called down to Steve. "It gets really narrow up here, I really don't think your shoulders would fit."

"Do you think you can turn the machine off?"

"I'm going to try," she answered. She tried to squeeze through the hole but realized their rucksack was catching. "Here, I'm going to drop the rucksack, it won't fit through with me." She unclipped it from her shoulders and let it slip off and drop. She heard him catch it below her. She shimmied through the hole and pulled herself to the top of the ledge. The machine was larger and noisier up close and the light from Steve's torch below wasn't very helpful.

After studying what she could of the machine for a few moments she finally started piecing together what she was seeing. The levers and knobs on the other side seemed to be decorative and hidden behind a Fresnel lens were tubes connected to the tops of the glass canisters. She located the nozzles on them and turned them off. The machine seemed to cough and she searched quickly to find a power switch. Before she could, it shuddered so violently she could feel the rock under her feet shifting and there was a horrible groaning noise.

"Hermione!" Steve called seconds before the ledge broke from the side of the rock it was on. Hermione, the machine, and all the rock tumbled down into the pond below. She gasped and swallowed water, choking on it as she thrashed to the surface. The water was freezing. The black spots in her vision swam larger and in the cold and the dark she felt like there was a tentacled monster grabbing at her limbs to pull her down into the surprisingly deep water.

She felt her body get jerked out of the water by her jacket collar and soon she was on the bank of the pond, coughing and gasping. The metallic taste to the air had dissipated but it was exponentially colder than it had been. When she finally got her breath somewhat back—she was still shivering something awful—She felt Steve kneeling at her side.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said through her chattering teeth.

"The ledge collapsing caused a lot of damage. It doesn't look like we'll be getting out the same way we got in."

"We'll just have to find another way out," she said. She sat up and surveyed the damage. The machine was broken in the water and whatever chemical or potion it had been pumping into the nearby air had stopped. The water was frozen over completely and the cold that radiated from it was enough to cause her soaked clothes to get crunchy from frost and ice. "Whoever set this up is a jerk," she mumbled as she shivered. She reached out towards the rucksack at Steve's side with a trembling hand but stopped with her hand on top of the bag. "Fuck."

"What?" Steve asked.

"I had a change of clothes in my bag."

"And?"

"And my bag utilizes magic. I won't be able to get anything—food, water, potions, camping gear, or clothes—out of it while we're down here."

"Are you sure we're still in the dead zone?"

She nodded. "It's an odd tugging sensation, like a low-powered vacuum pulling under my skin." She pulled her wand out and flicked it, " _Lumos!_ " Light did not shine from the tip, just as she suspected. She stowed her wand away though it took several tries for her hands to work properly to slide it into the mechanism at her wrist.

"Well, we need to get out of these wet, icy clothes." He pulled the rucksack away from her lap and went about making a crude camp, finding a relatively flat spot and setting out a sleeping bag. He looked back up at her as he started taking his jacket off. "Get undressed, Hermione."

She blinked stupidly at him for several seconds before she realized what he was proposing. "I... I mean, you don't—"

"And let you suffer from hypothermia when you don't have to? I don't think so." He finished unbuttoning his own wet overshirt and pulled off his undershirt before she even started working on her layers. She was able to get down to her bra and was having a difficult time getting her fingers to work on the fastener of her drenched pants when she felt hot fingers helping her along. "Are your undergarments wet too?" he asked. His voice had gone softer, like removing their clothes, even for survival, was an intimate act. She swallowed and nodded. He helped her crawl over to the sleeping bag before he removed his shoes and trousers. He crawled in the bag first and then held the flap open for her to follow.

She turned off the electric torch and waited a few moments to see if her eyes would adjust to the darkness. After a few measured but shivery breaths they did. She removed the last of her wet clothes and slipped inside the space he'd made for her. He drew in a hissed breath when she pressed against him but then zipped the bag up around them as much as he could. He pulled her a little closer and she reached up and pulled her wet plait out from between them. She breathed out a shuddering sigh and her whole body shivered against his. His breath was warm at the back of her neck. "I've got a few MREs for later. I figure we should probably wait for morning to try and find our way out. That all right with you?"

She nodded and snuggled back closer into his hot skin.

A minute or so later, he whispered in her ear again. "You might as well put your cold feet on me, you'll never stop shivering if you don't."

She released the breath she'd been holding with a soft chuckle and slid her feet further back in the sleeping bag to press against his shins. She expected him to comment about how icy they felt but he didn't.

Warmth seeped into her skin fairly quickly but sleep crept up on her in increments.

When she woke up, she had somehow spun in the sleeping bag so that she was facing Steve. She opened her eyes and felt a burst of happiness when early morning sunlight illuminated the cave. It lit his face and she could admire the length of his eyelashes and the slight asymmetry of his nose. He opened bright blue eyes and met her gaze. "Good morning," he whispered.

"Morning."

"Are you warm, now?"

She nodded. She watched as his gaze moved over her face and held her breath when his focus paused at her lips. Her heartbeat seemed loud in her ears as it thumped along with his. And then his stomach rumbled. Loudly.

She giggled and he cracked a grin. "I'm hungry. Let's break into those MREs and then see about getting out of here. Now that the source of the hallucinogen is stopped, it's time to head back home, right?"

"Yes," she said, pulling her very warm and slightly sweaty torso away from his. She could feel her nipples already starting to harden as she pulled away from the heat of his body. He pulled the zipper of the sleeping bag down. She scooted out, and turned, hoping not to flash him too much before reaching towards her clothes. They were still wet and cold but the ice crystals that had formed on them were gone. Once she'd covered herself again she looked up at the pond. It had melted overnight as the potion in the canisters had settled on the bottom. "I'll have to send another team down here to recover what they can. All of my sampling and recovery equipment is in my bag." She waited for the sound of his clothes to stop rustling before she turned back around.

After breakfast, Steve repacked the rucksack and retied his shield to it. He clipped it on his own shoulders this time. "Since the sunlight is coming from there," he said pointing in the direction towards the back of the cavern where they hadn't ventured the night before, "I say we start there. How do you feel about bouldering? You want to go first or would you rather I do it?"

She raised her hand in a gesture suggesting he proceed her and so he did. She was sure he was showing off at least a little when he jumped straight up and caught a narrow hold and then started manoeuvring his way towards the incoming sunlight. She watched and waited for several minutes as he got higher up before she started looking for holds she could reach.

It took over an hour for them to reach the top and by the time they did, the tugging sensation under Hermione's skin had faded. The hole where the sunlight was entering the cave was small but she pointed her wand at it and cleared small bits of rock a little at a time until they were able to squeeze through. Once they were out, Hermione pulled out her mobile phone and documented the location of the entrance, already sending the pertinent information to Director Fury for debriefing. Of course, when they got back to DC she'd have to work up a full report. They made the hike back to Steve's motorbike shortly thereafter and changed into fresh clothes in the restrooms near the office. A different park ranger was on duty and Steve was detailing the non-classified parts of what they'd found. The ranger was blinking up at Steve in star-struck awe and Hermione doubted he was taking in a single word that Steve was telling him.

Finally, Hermione stepped in and hinted that they needed to get back on the road. As they were walking back to the motorbike, Steve grinned at her and asked, "How about after our leisurely ride through the fall foliage, we stop for lunch before we fly back home?" There was a different tone to his question than any of the other times he'd suggested they meet for lunch or coffee in the last year.

She stopped and turned back to him, detailing his body language. "Are you asking me on a date, Captain Rogers?"

He glanced down and she was shocked to see the barest hint of pink flush across his cheeks. "Yeah, I am. So how about it?"

She smiled widely at him. "Yes. I think I'd like that."

The ride back to the Quinjet, past all the colourful autumn foliage, was beautiful.


	7. The Steps to this Dance

**The Steps to this Dance  
**

 _Steve and Hermione have been together for six months. This might be the next step._

Pairing: Hermione/Steve  
Rating: mature  
Warnings: none  
Tropes: Coworkers (SHIELD), Fade to Black, AU – Repealed Statute of Secrecy  
Words: 967  
Original Release Date: 20 Oct 2018  
Square: B3 - "I can do this all day."

* * *

Hermione's legs were shaking so much she had no doubt that if the door hadn't been at her back she would have toppled over already. She had both hands tight in his hair, fingers curled around soft blond strands as she held on to something. Everything was so overwhelming, her skin felt like every nerve ending was alight with pleasure. She shrieked and tightened her grip and the last of her strength fled as she slid down the door. She panted and blinked bleary eyes at Steve.

He was grinning, his chin coated in slick from where he'd had his face buried between her thighs.

"I think you're trying to kill me," she mumbled as she tried to catch her breath. "Aren't you—isn't your tongue tired?"

His grin slipped into a brighter smile as he looked down, a blush spread across his cheekbones. "I could do this all day." He glanced back up at her from under his lashes and her heart gave an extra hard thump in her chest. Merlin, he was gorgeous. "Want to move this to the bedroom?"

"I don't think I can walk just yet."

"That's okay. I didn't expect you to," he said. He stood and scooped her up like she weighed nothing, carrying her from the front door of his flat where they'd barely made it inside to his bedroom. He didn't bother turning on the light as late afternoon sunlight was still filtering through his curtains.

She glanced at the clock on the bedside table. "I guess we're not going to make it to Tony's soiree?" she teased as he set her down on the bed.

"Pfft." He'd already started peeling his thin shirt from his torso, damp with sweat. "I'd much rather spend the night with you."

She smiled as she worked on pulling the last of her own clothes off. She desperately wanted to feel his hot skin against hers. Her arms felt like they were made of jelly and she didn't get very far in taking off her top before she got stuck. "'elp!"

He chuckled at her predicament and helped her remove the offending item of clothing. "Who knew an orgasm would wear you out so fast?"

" _An_ orgasm?" she questioned but couldn't stop laughing. "Try three, you madman!"

He had that adorably obnoxious grin on his lips like he was pretending to be innocent. She rolled her eyes at him. He knew what he was doing. He stripped himself the rest of the way and joined her on the bed and that was the last time she glanced at the clock all night.

In the morning, Hermione awoke to the smell of sausage browning in the kitchen. She laid there and stretched, working at all the sore muscles from the night before. She wondered if it was worth getting up or if she could justify laying in bed all day.

She and Steve had started dating six months ago and the sex started shortly after that yet she still felt a little awestruck after every time. He was a generous lover and enthusiastic in his desire to learn what worked for her. And it made her fall just a little more in love with him every day.

She hadn't told him yet; she was still too scared that she was just a replacement for Peggy to him. She hadn't even told Peggy when she'd gone to see her in the nursing home. Hermione felt it wouldn't be right to bring it up. She knew Peggy had got married in the past but she hadn't been when they'd met and Hermione had never thought it her business to ask.

The door opened and Steve stood there with a tray. "I made you breakfast."

She smiled and sat up, grabbing his shirt from where he'd tossed it last night so she'd have something covering her. He set the tray over her lap and relaxed at the foot of the bed to watch her eat.

This was new.

He'd usually make breakfast but he'd never brought it to her. "It looks, and smells, great, Steve," she said. It did at that, sausage, two thick waffles with just the right amount of butter and drizzled syrup, a sunnyside egg, and a tall glass of orange juice. It wasn't a fry up but she knew she'd enjoy it anyway. She took a bite and moaned a little.

He was smiling but there was a tension around his eyes when she looked back at him. She set her fork down. "What is it?"

"Huh?" he said, trying to play off the tell of emotion on his face. He seemed to realise that she would wait him out if he tried to distract him. "I was just wondering... Would you..." He bit his lip and then met her gaze. "Would you move in with me?"

She smiled and picked up her fork. "Yes." She speared a sausage link and held it out to him. He dutifully ate it and she waited for him to swallow before asking. "Was that really your question?"

His gaze dropped to the bedspread, rumpled underneath them. "Uh. Not exactly." He looked back up at her. "I don't know how this is supposed to go, Hermione."

"I don't know either, really, but I do know that I would love to move in with you. So we'll start from there."

He smiled and leaned forward to kiss her. She had to grab the glass of orange juice so it didn't fall over.

She was happy. Moving in was a good step. She would have to mention the miscegenation laws in the United States eventually but living together would expose him to all the marches and rallies she attended for equal rights for Magicals. It was a good start.


	8. The Veil

**The Veil  
**

 _Hermione, Harry, and Steve investigate a second Veil of Death._

Pairing: Hermione/Steve, Peggy/Bucky, Bucky & Sirius  
Rating: teen  
Warnings: Unresolved Angst, Characters Running Away from Uncomfortable Situations  
Tropes: Coworkers (SHIELD), Time Travel, Bucky Barnes Lives!, Sirius Lives!, Past Peggy/Steve, Canon Disabled Character, AU – Repealed Statute of Secrecy  
Words: 4,738  
Original Release Date: 02 Dec 2018

* * *

"You joining us for another mission, Carter?" Sirius asked as Peggy approached them. "Or is it Barnes, now?"

She ignored him and turned to Bucky. "It's a long drive, are you up to it?"

"For the first eight or so hours then you'll have to take over," Bucky nodded. He shut the trunk of the car and headed around to the driver's side. It gave him a moment to scrub the giddy smile off of his face. He knew that Peggy wouldn't take his name, she'd worked absolutely too hard to stand on her own to have her name sluiced off like she wasn't her own woman. Bucky respected her for it immensely, but at the same time, knowing she came home to him at the end of the day hadn't stopped putting a smile on his face in the last six months. And Sirius wouldn't be Sirius if he hadn't noticed and made it a point to rub it in every chance he got.

"Would you rather sit behind me or Bucky, Agent Black?"

The gobsmacked look on Sirius's face regarding being regulated to the back seat had Bucky sniggering. He covered it by coughing lightly and getting into the car. Pulling his door shut would have settled the argument but he was alone in the car for another half a minute before the passenger side door opened. An enormous black dog barrelled into the back seat and sat in the middle, head level with Bucky's and mouth already open in a wet, tongue-dripping pant.

"Eugh, really Sirius? You could at least _not_ drool on me."

Peggy didn't bother to hide her snort of amusement. "You'll need to roll your window down for him."

"Why does it have to be my window?" Bucky asked even though he was already reaching across his body to spin the crank to roll the window down.

He glanced back at her when she was quiet and the look on her face told him everything he needed to know. _Because she refused to have him leave dog drool on her shoulder_. He felt a glob drop down the back of his left shoulder and nodded, a silent, _good point._

They could have flown to New Orleans, of course, but Sirius still didn't technically exist and they didn't want the hassle of flying. Even if the giant dog could've been crated, he wasn't keen on staying in a cage. Bucky knew his history and didn't blame him.

So, as SHIELD's top agents, they decided to drive to their destination.

Sirius had said he was looking forward to the visit as it was a haven for witches and wizards. Bucky believed it and had voiced the concern that if the paranormal stone archway they were heading to investigate was magic-related, shouldn't the magical government handle it? Peggy had said that since they weren't supposed to know of its existence, they had to work under the assumption that they were the only ones investigating.

The first leg of the journey was easy. The drive was pleasant and they made good time. When they stopped to stretch their legs, eat, and relieve their bladders (Sirius shifted back, even though Bucky teased and told him he didn't mind walking him), Peggy took over the wheel. Bucky had expected Sirius to return to dog form. He hadn't, so while he was trying to nap, Sirius was busy asking questions, telling stories, and making jokes. Not that Bucky typically minded any of those things but he was tired and just wanted to close his eyes. Before they'd gone much farther he snapped.

"Can we find a place to sleep for the night?" He realized he must have yelled when Peggy's soft chuckles and Sirius's rapid-fire delivery both cut short.

"Are you all right, James?" Peggy asked.

He licked his lips. She only typically called him that when she wanted a level of professionalism between them—like in front of other agents. But Sirius was a friend; Sirius called him Bucky. He breathed out, calmed a little by the steady road noise under the car and the sudden quiet of the other occupants. Finally, after a second heavy inhale and exhale he said, "I didn't realize how tiring the drive would be. I'm sorry I yelled." He looked from Peggy to Sirius in the dim light of the car interior.

Peggy glanced at him and then back at the road. "Is your arm hurting?"

Bucky's first instinct was to deny it but even as he was opening his mouth the persistent ache of it suddenly came into clear focus. He exhaled again, now understanding where most of his irritation had come from. His missing left fist felt like he was clutching fire with it. On top of the phantom limb pain was the sharp sting where the plastic edge of the cuff of his prosthetic was rubbing in his armpit. "Yes. And the prosthetic is pinching."

"Do you need help taking it off?" she asked calmly.

"Peg, I'm not going to strip in the car."

"We still have hours to drive before we stop for the night. There's no need to suffer pain that you can ease."

He waffled on about it for a few more moments before reaching up to start unbuttoning his shirt. He felt ridiculous but when he unbuckled the prosthetic and it fell away from his shoulder he sighed. His armpit was still tender but that particular spot of pain was eased. He brushed his hand through his hair and then leaned his head back against the rest. "Thanks, Peggy," he mumbled.

A few hours later they stopped at a motel for the night. There were two beds and Sirius, as a dog again, had claimed one of them. Before Peggy went to take a shower for the night, Bucky gave her a perfunctory kiss on the temple. He undressed down to his undershirt and shorts and crawled in the bed, falling asleep quickly.

They all woke up early the following morning to finish the last leg of the journey. After a shower, Bucky got back behind the wheel and drove the rest of the way. During the drive, Sirius was in his dog form but when they got to the city, he shifted back and the three of them headed for the destination they'd been given.

From what Bucky could tell, the strange stone archway they were there to investigate was inside the first floor of an old church. They were led in a side building past rooms of children at desks and into the church near the apse. There was a short, narrow, hidden door behind the altar that they were instructed to go through.

To lighten the mood, Bucky glanced back at Sirius and whispered, "Are you allowed in churches?"

"Haha, very funny. Of course, I'm allow—whoa."

The tiny room behind the altar was bare. The high walls were stone but there were no windows. The room was lit by a single torch that flicked harshly like it was held in a windstorm. In the centre of the room was a tall archway with a thick black curtain blowing in gusts of high wind.

"Where's the breeze coming from?" Bucky asked, knowing neither Peggy or Sirius would know.

"That's a Veil of Death, all right," Sirius said from where he was standing just at the door like he was scared of stepping further into the room.

"All right," Peggy said, her tone no-nonsense and ready to get to the bottom of the mystery. "So we're here because the archway has been acting abnormally. From what the nuns reported, it's never caused such a racket. Normally the curtain is still and there's only a pleasant breeze."

"Do you hear that?" Bucky asked. He blinked and took a step closer to try and make out what he was hearing. It almost sounded like..."Ma?"

"Don't, Bucky," Sirius warned, "Don't get too close. We don't know if this one will act like mine and spit you out in some other time... or... or if it's really just going to swallow you up into nonexistence."

Peggy glanced back at them and took another step forward, seemingly unafraid. "Yes, I hear... I hear Michael." She blinked a few times in rapid succession but when she turned to look back at Bucky he could tell she had tears in her eyes. "Not Steve, though. Why not Steve?"

"Guys?" Sirius said, trying to warn them again. Bucky looked away from the curtain to Sirius just as he slipped past like he was being dragged across the floor. "No, no! I don't want to!" As he started to slide past Peggy she grabbed hold of his waist to try and anchor him. Her heels screeched sound across the floor. Bucky reached out and grabbed her around the waist to add his body weight to hold Sirius back from the Veil. The wind noise had increased tremendously. They sounded like they were in the centre of a storm.

"You're not going anywhere without me, dammit," Bucky said through grit teeth, mouth pressed into the back of her shoulder.

There was an almighty jerk that seemed to knock Bucky loose from the floor and then all three of them went tumbling through the archway past the heavy curtain.

* . * . *

While they were waiting for the liaison from the International Auror Division to show up, Steve was enjoying the architecture of the French Quarter in New Orleans. From where he was sitting on an upper balcony of their hotel, he could see plenty of buildings that had a similar style. The multistory balconies with their floor-to-ceiling windows, all open to let the light, humid breeze blow through. He liked the colourful buildings with their slightly crooked walls and the immensely detailed cresting around the roofs. He knew he was here for another paranormal mission with Hermione but maybe before they left, he could spend a few hours trying to capture the look of the place with pencil and paper.

Movement caught Steve's attention and he saw that their liaison had just arrived via Portkey. He had Portkeys explained to him as items charmed for long-distance or group teleportation. He hadn't had the chance to experience the sensation of either form of magical teleportation yet but from what he'd been told, neither were very comfortable forms of travel. They were used mostly because they were convenient and fast.

He stood and went to meet the Auror. From the way Hermione was hugging the fella, he had an idea of who it might be. Sure enough, when she stepped back he saw it was the same messy-haired, spectacled man he'd met before. Steve had read some of Hermione's books about the Wizarding World in general and Harry Potter specifically, so he felt marginally more aware of who this guy was, especially in regards to who he was to Hermione.

"Harry, I know I introduced you before but—"

"Steve, right?"

"Yeah, nice to see you again."

"Same. I'm glad it's not for another extraterrestrial disaster." He looked back at Hermione. "Catch me up to speed, why did SHIELD request me?"

"I requested you as soon as I found out what we were looking at. It's another Veil, Harry."

"Like the one Sirius...?"

"Yes. Just like the one in the Department of Mysteries but this one is acting abnormally. The caretakers of the museum it's in said it's been causing electrical interference. They said for the last week it's been so windy in the room that the curtain is blowing straight out like you'd see in hurricane footage."

Steve wasn't sure what or who a _serious_ was but he could recognise the visual cues of a man re-experiencing something painful. He'd read the briefing. This particular paranormal phenomenon was called the Veil of Death. Unknown date of creation and unknown creator. As far as the communities they were found in, the Veils had just been there since time immemorial. Reports of hearing voices from beyond the grave were common for many people who came near to them and of the few documented cases of someone falling through one, the person was never seen or heard from again.

He followed Hermione and Harry down to the lobby of the hotel and let them catch up with one another's lives as they walked the short distance to the old convent where New Orleans's Veil was located.

They were led through the nave of the church, directly to the altar. Hidden behind it was a small, old door and beyond that, they could hear the wind howling like a raging storm. Before they'd even got close, Hermione turned to Harry. "Can you feel that?"

He nodded and palmed his wand. The poor guy had gone pale and looked like he was about to walk towards his death. Steve knew he was rather helpless when it came to magical things but he liked joining Hermione on her missions and he would keep both of them safe in any way he could.

He had to turn sideways and almost crouch when he followed them through the door. Hermione and Harry had their wands lit, illuminating the small room. It was much taller than he'd expected, probably the same height as the sanctuary behind them, and the walls were thick, heavy stone. They would hurt if they came loose and fell on someone. The ceiling was domed and although there were no windows, there was a great wind that swirled around and around that felt like it could flip a car. In the centre of the small space was a stone archway with a heavy, threadbare curtain hanging from the top. It writhed and curled in the high-force winds.

"Harry?" Hermione called and Steve was only sure he heard her because he saw her lips moving. "Do you feel the threads? It feels like there is a hole punched through fabric. It's all frayed."

Harry was still staring at the archway, eyes wide and unblinking. "Do you hear them?"

Steve did hear voices. He heard his Ma. Colonel Phillips. Dum Dum's ridiculous battle cry. He did not hear Bucky. He blinked and looked away, only to realize he'd been steadily moving closer. When Hermione had first briefed him regarding this thing, she'd told him not to move towards it no matter what he heard. He'd responded with a smile and a, "Now why would I do that?" He hadn't realized how strong the yearning to hear them would be. Harry had been moving closer too and Steve reached out and put his hand on Harry's arm to hold him back.

Hermione alone seemed unaffected. "Harry, grab one of the threads, help me pull!"

Steve had no idea what she was talking about and assumed correctly that it was something intangible that only Harry could feel. Harry lifted his wand and did a spell and then pulled back, moving his arm in a circle, like he was winding a thick rope with the tip of his wand.

There were new voices suddenly, a woman's voice saying his name, a man's scream, and then another man's swear.

The high winds ceased, the roaring died into a whimper, and all three of them were flung back into the wall. The stones did hurt, Steve noted, though he was thankful none of them had fallen. He was the first on his feet but then he stuttered to a stop and blinked.

Standing in front of the now still curtain were three people—Peggy, Bucky, and an unidentified man.

Bucky's gaze didn't waver from Steve as he mumbled a shocked, "Holy cow."

* . * . *

The first thing Peggy could think was that somehow she'd hit her head and she was dreaming. Or hallucinating maybe, because standing in front of her was Steve. There were two other people but they didn't matter to her. Just Steve, staring at her like he couldn't believe his eyes, like she was some miracle or dream.

Were they both dreaming, then?

And she thought of their kisses and their tentative plans and their what-ifs and she shouldn't. She could still feel her husband's arms around her back, could still hear the echo of his words, _you're not going anywhere without me_.

Then the other two people did matter as they both lifted wands and aimed them at her and her companions.

"Sirius?" the dark-haired man said from beside Steve.

"Harry," Sirius answered. He hadn't pulled his wand as far as she could tell but he looked wary.

"What was the last thing you said to me before you fell through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries?" The young man named Harry asked, squinting like he was trying to stifle emotion.

Sirius nodded like he understood—Peggy did not—and answered, "I said, 'Harry, take the prophecy, grab Neville and run!'"

Harry released a half-stifled sob and rushed at Sirius, embracing him tightly with Sirius squeezing just as hard in return.

Bucky cleared his throat a little and moved a step away from them, dropping his arm from her waist. "Steve... is this... do you know us?"

The woman answered when it looked like Steve was just going to continue staring at them. "Are you Director Carter's husband?"

Pain wrote itself across Steve's face. Bucky ducked his head and the thing that had given him joy every time it was mentioned for the last six months seemed to cause him immense pain. He looked back up and met the woman's eyes. "Yeah." He was doing an admirable job of not looking at Steve to see his reaction.

"Then I think this is the same timeline. I remember seeing your photograph on Director Carter's desk after she hired me and became my mentor at SHIELD. I'm Hermione Granger, by the way."

"James Barnes."

"Well, Mr Barnes—"

"Agent," Peggy said, correcting her.

Hermione nodded at her. "Director Carter, Agent Barnes, what do you say we wrangled the rest of our companions and get away from the Veil, hmm? It seems whatever was causing the disturbance has fixed itself. Sirius, Harry, come on. You can catch up back at the hotel."

Sirius's voice sounded a little choked but he pulled back out of his hug with Harry. "Is that little Hermione?" She gave him a look and he chuckled. "Yep, couldn't mistake that glare for anyone else unless it was coming from Molly Weasley herself." He and Harry stayed close to one another as the six of them trooped out of the church.

Nothing was said as Hermione led the way back a short walk to a hotel and to their room. She cast some sort of spell at the walls and then turned back to look at them. "All right, I know you all probably want to catch up but I need some information for my report so we can get started on paperwork to get you three legal again. Unless you think you'll end up returning to your time?"

Peggy shook her head, as she had no idea what had happened.

"What year was it when you left?"

"What year is it now? How is Steve here? How can this be the same timeline? Steve..." he paused and glanced briefly in his direction, "Steve died," Bucky asked.

"That's part of the catching up. It's Friday, 19 July 2013. Did you three fall into the Veil here in New Orleans or did you come through some other portal?"

"Wednesday, 19 July 1950, and yes, it was the same archway," Peggy answered. Despite how much she wanted to know about Steve and how he came to be sitting right there, she understood the need for information, especially if they were working for SHIELD.

"Sirius, how did you end up in the past? What day?"

He had looked up at his name from where he'd been simply staring at Harry. "Same day as I fell through, just in 1947. The Veil in the Department of Mysteries."

"Three years for you, seventeen for us." Hermione ran her hand over her hair and blew out a breath. "This is crazy and it's going to take a lot of Arithmancy charts to see if I can explain this phenomenon. Anything else?" She looked at Steve, who was still staring quietly at Peggy and Bucky, then she looked back at Sirius and Peggy. "I know you want to catch up so I'll just... I'll go for a walk or something."

Before she could leave, something on her person—and Steve's—chimed. Hermione pulled the small device out of her pocket before Steve did. "It's Sharon, she says Peggy's missing from the nursing home." She looked back up at Bucky. "If you wanted more confirmation that this is indeed the same timeline, there you go." She turned to Steve who had pulled his device from his pocket but not done anything with it. "I'll talk to Sharon. Here's hoping Evelyn and her kids haven't disappeared as well." And then she left, practically bolting from the room.

Sirius and Harry were talking quietly next to one another on the loveseat, ignoring the three of them.

"How?" Steve finally asked.

Bucky told the story of how he survived with the help of magical people in the Alps and how he eventually joined SSR and then SHIELD when Peggy and Howard had set it up. "Your turn," he said when he had summarized the last five years of his life. He hadn't mentioned their marriage once.

"I didn't die when I scuttled the plane. The water—the ice—I... it froze me. The glaciers shifted and the plane was found in 2011... and SHIELD thawed me out. Hermione helped get me acclimated and after... well there was a national emergency six months after that and that's when I decided to join SHIELD."

The three of them looked at one another and Peggy was sure that amid the shock and joy of seeing one another again, she could feel the tension regarding the things they hadn't discussed. Steve's gaze had slipped down to the wedding band on Peggy's finger and to the hook prosthetic where Bucky's left hand should be.

Steve finally seemed like he was going to break the tension first and said, "So... when did—" but the door behind them opened and Hermione came back with several folders in her hands.

"Oh, good, you're all still here." She looked at Peggy and spoke to her first. "Since you were the only one still living, I didn't have to do much with your paperwork other than add a note to your file mentioning the time travel." She handed Peggy a folder as she spoke. From beside her, Bucky made an odd choking noise at Hermione's words. She directed her attention to him next. "One of the benefits of working at SHIELD is I can get paperwork pushed through the typical departments much faster than the average person." She handed him a folder as well, saying, "Your death certificate was rescinded with notes mentioning the time travel."

"When did I die?" Bucky asked.

"1986, on a mission for SHIELD." She answered. She glanced down and her no-nonsense expression turned sad when she looked back up it was directed at both Peggy and Bucky. "Unfortunately Evelyn and your two grandchildren have been unborn. I'm sorry."

"Unborn? What does that mean?" Peggy asked. She felt the ridiculous need to put a hand to her stomach. She ignored the instinct and kept her hands right where they were, clasped in her lap.

"She was born in 1953. Seeing as you won't be there to have her, she..."

"Stopped existing?" Peggy didn't know what to feel about that. It wasn't as if she'd lost a child she'd carried and known and loved but at the same time, the idea that she'd had a child, had had grandchildren, and they no longer existed due to their accidental jump forward in time... it stung. She'd had a child with Bucky.

"Yes. One of the dozens of consequences time travel can cause. I've already dispatched two Magical SHIELD agents to work on creating explanations for their disappearances. There's way too many people they could have interacted with in their lives to just obliviate memories but spreading information about time travel would pose an enormous risk to the stability of the universe. Speaking of stability..." she turned and handed her last folder to Sirius. "You did an excellent job of not existing during your visit to the past, Agent Black."

"Then how did you know I was an Agent?" Sirius asked.

"SHIELD has some very classified records. Including old SSR files. It seems an Agent Jack Thompson referenced the name Agent S Black in a single report during the autumn of 1948. Everyone else who you might have worked with did very well not to mention you. You're a ghost. Our current director, Nick Fury, would like to speak with you regarding a new position with SHIELD. A caveat from a witch living in the United States, though, only take it if you're going to be based out of Britain. There's still anti-wizard laws on the books here."

Sirius scrunched his nose. "Really? Like what?"

"Well, citizens don't have the right to vote and citizens or not, we don't have equal rights. Muggles who own private businesses can discriminate against us if they want. And there's the miscegenation laws."

"I thought Rappaport's Law was repealed in '65?"

"These are on the Muggle side. And it's on a Federal level. Intermarried couples' marriages were revoked in 1999 after the exposure of magic. They classify us as non-human and ban interspecies unions on the basis of bestiality."

"I'll show them bestiality."

"Ugh, Sirius, I could have lived without that thought in my head," Harry said. From beside Peggy, Bucky was nodding in agreement.

Unable to help herself, Peggy looked back to Steve. Instead of the humour, or perhaps bemusement she expected to see on his handsome face, he looked heartbroken again. She must have said his name or made a small noise because everyone turned to look at her and then at him.

His pained expression was pinned on Hermione. "That's why you said—"

Hermione interrupted him with a swift nod and a look in Peggy's direction. "Yes, that's why I said what I did. I'm sorry. I... I didn't know how to bring it up." And suddenly Bucky's omitting details about the relationship might not have been out of shame but out of courtesy; she wondered if he had picked up on body language between the two of them that she hadn't.

Steve nodded and stood. "Excuse me," he said, half-glancing in Peggy's direction before he all but ran out the door. Hermione watched him leave, frowning. She sighed, then perhaps compartmentalized, and turned back to Sirius.

"Did you have any other questions?"

"Yeah, one. When'd he ask?"

Peggy could see her entire body tense up at the question. "Last month."

Sirius let out a low whistle, "Merlin, Kitten. You couldn't have brought it up in a month? Why didn't you just—"

"You know what, Sirius, you don't have any life experience to speak from so why don't you—"

"Hey!" he shouted, "I have life experience! I've probably been in more relationships—"

"Right, because twelve years in Azkaban, two on the run, and another being an alcoholic and arguing with your mother's portrait constitutes experience. Don't try and give me relationship advice!"

Harry stood up, putting his hands between them, though neither of them had moved. "Now I remember how volatile you two could be. We're going now. I've got a Portkey, he's got to meet the kids and get settled and..." he patted Hermione on the arm, "I'll call you later." Several seconds later, both he and Sirius had vanished from sight. There hadn't even been a pop like when Sirius did Apparition.

Hermione inhaled deeply, held it, and then exhaled before turning around. "I apologize. I'm going to... I'll send a message to Steve and the three of you can take the jet back to DC—that's where SHIELD's primary headquarters is now—and I'll... I'll see you around."

Then she too, disappeared, though with the recognizable pop that Peggy was used to with Apparition.

"Well," Bucky said after a few moments of silence in the room, "Welcome to the future, I guess."

The future, indeed.


	9. An Uncommon Proposal

**An Uncommon Proposal  
**

 _Steve confronts and comforts Hermione and later comes up with an idea he shares with Bucky. Hermione and Peggy talk._

Pairing: Hermione/Steve, Peggy/Bucky, Bucky/Hermione/Peggy/Steve (mentioned)  
Rating: teen  
Warnings: Canon Disabled Character  
Tropes: Coworkers (SHIELD), Time Travel, Bucky Barnes Lives!, Past Peggy/Steve, AU – Repealed Statute of Secrecy, discussions of Polyamory  
Words: 2,653  
Original Release Date: 21 Dec 2018

* * *

Hermione's text was brief and to the point. Steve was tasked with checking out of the hotel and transporting the new agents back to DC. He was surprised to see it was just Bucky and Peggy when he returned. They were all quiet until they got back to the jet and Steve thought that maybe they felt as unsure about how to act as he did.

When he settled into the pilot's seat, Bucky asked with a tease, "I sure hope someone taught you how to fly a plane."

He nodded, chuckling. It was a fair point. "It mostly flies itself but yeah, I was given some instruction." He set their course, then unlatched the seat to spin it around to look at them. Bucky and Peggy were both strapped in and looked a little nervous, sitting straight-backed in their seats. He felt like a doofus but for a few moments, he just stared at them, knowing the look on his face was probably giving away his every thought. As he was looking Peggy over—she'd let her hair grow a bit—and he got to her hands, he again noticed the ring on her finger. He ducked his head, ashamed for ogling a married woman as blatantly as he was. "I've really missed you two."

"We've missed you, Steve," Peggy said. There was a smile in her voice that warmed his heart.

The console chirped and he looked back to see a message from Hermione. He skimmed it then decided to summarise it. "Hermione's initiated the Barnes Protocol, code Black. That's different."

"Barnes-Black, huh?" Bucky asked, that teasing tone still there. "Sirius would get a kick out of that. Our names hyphenated before yours and..." he trailed off and looked at Peggy.

"The Barnes Protocol was one of the first things I did at SHIELD," Peggy said. "It's for any returning agent, previously thought MIA or KIA. I assume the code Black designation is new, maybe to indicate returning via magical means? I never thought it'd be used on me, though."

Steve returned his attention to them. "Hermione was the one who initialized it for me and was my contact. Now that I've heard your story, Buck, I understand the name better. Before it just sounded sort of hopeless."

"Hope was always a part of it. If James hadn't returned, I'd have named it Rogers. Howard was going on yearly exhibitions looking for you."

"I didn't know you had hope he'd be found alive," Bucky said softly.

"I never voiced it. I mean, it's such a child's sort of fantasy, isn't it? That I didn't want to believe he had died because I hadn't seen it happen? I had the same naive hope regarding Michael at the beginning of the war."

"Michael?" Steve asked. He felt ridiculous at the spike of jealousy that passed through him. Of course, she'd had other men in her life. He wished he'd turned to check the controls of the plane, he had a feeling she could see the jealousy written on his face.

She smiled wistfully. "My brother." Her left hand curled in a nervous gesture, making her wedding band glint before she glanced at Bucky. "Steve, I—"

The console chirped again, saving him from whatever she was going to say. He looked back at the missive. "It seems that there are two apartments set up for you, one in New York and one in DC. The one in DC is—" he blinked at the number on the screen. At first, he thought it was the apartment he shared with Hermione but no, on second glance... "It looks like it'll be right next to ours. Apartment four-point-five. I suppose she made it completely with magic? That apartment didn't exist before." He looked back at them. They were looking at one another, communicating without words in a way that sent another shot of jealousy through him. He wanted that. He inhaled deeply. He had that with Hermione. He had had that with both of them too, though, and that's what hurt. He wanted it back.

"We'll take the one next to you, for now," Bucky said after a small nod from Peggy. "I'm not sure how I'll feel about coming home to New York sixty-three years in the future."

Steve nodded in understanding. "It's different. A lot more people but that's true of everywhere. Everything's more, somehow. Bigger, faster, brighter... louder."

"I'm sure we'll manage," Peggy answered.

* . * . *

Three days had passed and Steve hadn't seen hide nor hair of Hermione the entire time. He had a feeling she was coming around when he would leave for the day—whether he was spending it with Bucky and Peggy or just going to work. Finally, he decided to not leave the apartment. He camped out on the couch with the television remote and a blanket and settled in to waste the day away.

An hour and a half after he normally would have left, the door opened and in she walked. She looked tired, with dark circles under her eyes. Her clothes were wrinkled like she'd been sleeping in them. She got halfway to the bedroom before she froze, her eyes wide as she took in Steve on the couch. "Sorry," she mumbled. "I was just..." she pointed towards their bedroom door and after a beat walked the rest of the way to it, closing it behind her.

Steve sighed. He didn't know what was going on but he had a feeling. He stood and crept to the door, tapping it lightly before opening it. Hermione was packing clothes into one of her magical bags. She paused when he entered but then started again without looking up at him.

"What are you doing?" he asked softly.

She hesitated, stuffed another shirt into the bag, and then looked up at him. "I'm, umm, taking a case in Europe."

"Please don't lie to me."

"I'm not, I'm—"

"And it requires all of your clothes?"

She paused and then shrugged. "I don't know how long it'll be."

"Hermione..."

She sighed and then looked up at him. "I'm sorry, Steve. I am. I just... I love you, I do, but I'm not, this isn't... I know you're..." she looked so frazzled. She was an incredible agent, her ability to lie rivaled Natasha's sometimes, but it seemed that emotions were her weak spot.

"Then why are you running?"

Her bottom lip quivered before she bit it to try and hold herself together. He wanted to go to her, to wrap her in his arms and hold her tight. "I'm not. I know how much you love her and..."

"And she's married to my best friend, whom I also love. But I live with _you_. I asked _you_ to marry me."

Her face scrunched up and her voice came out reedy and strained like she was talking through tears in her throat, "And I said no."

He couldn't resist the urge this time. It propelled him forward and before she even let out her first sob, he was holding her. He held her as she cried, cradling her against his chest and kissed her head. He breathed in the scent of her, relished the heat of her body against his. He'd missed her. "Please don't leave me," he whispered.

After a few minutes, the worst of it had passed. "I'm an idiot," she murmured wetly. Her face was still pressed against his chest and he could feel his shirt was damp from her tears.

He pressed another kiss to her head before saying, "No, you're not. I just think you put logic ahead of your heart sometimes." She nodded. After another minute or so of just holding her, he asked, "You don't really have a case in Europe, right?"

She shook her head.

"Then let's put your clothes back, take a shower, maybe a nap, and go out for dinner with Peggy and Bucky. I think you'll like them once you get to know them."

She huffed. "I know I like Peggy. She was my mentor."

"Yes, but you haven't really got to know _this_ version. I expect she changed a bit by the time you met her the first time."

* . * . *

They ended up spending half the day with Bucky and Peggy. They wandered around the city like tourists, stopping at a few of the museums and buying an assortment of knickknacks from the gift shops.

Shortly before dinner, Steve excused himself to the restroom in one of the shops. On his way back to meet them, he stopped to people watch for a moment. One group of three caught his gaze. They were holding hands and occasionally as they walked, they would trade kisses. Steve felt captivated as he watched them.

"I think you're missing the point of a double date, Steve," Bucky said, having come to retrieve him.

Steve pointed at the triad, who were still in their own little bubble.

Bucky stepped closer and watched them, then glanced up at him. "What's going on in that head of yours?" he asked.

"Are you attracted to Hermione?"

His eyebrows shot up his forehead and he spluttered, "Wh—Umm, what? Steve, that's your girl. I, uh..."

Steve looked back at him and then back at the triad before they slipped out of sight around a corner. "I have an idea." He refocused his attention on Bucky. "But it's new and... I don't know, it might be too soon."

"Is this another one of your go-in-through-the-front-door sort of plans?"

Steve furrowed his brow.

"Yeah, I heard about that. Your reckless, suicidal tendencies are well-documented."

"No, this isn't one of those."

"Are you sure? Because I think you underestimate what a witch can do with a wand. Or what Peggy could do to my—" he cleared his throat, "well, let's just say I don't want to lose any other body parts and leave it at that."

Steve knew he was frowning at Bucky's flippancy regarding his left arm but he couldn't help himself. He briefly wondered if Stark had any interest in making prosthetics. "I'm not suggesting either of us cheat, Buck."

"Then what are you suggesting?"

"We all... all four of us... in a relationship together."

"Like... wife-swapping?"

He raised his eyebrows in a challenge. "Homosexuality isn't a crime now," he said and was rewarded with Bucky grinning and ducking his head, his cheeks turning a light pink. "When I tell you I love you and missed you, I mean it."

"Do you think it's enough?"

"I think it'd be worth it to try." Steve breathed deep and looked down at the worn concrete under his feet. He scuffed his sole against the ground and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I'm being selfish, aren't I?"

"Maybe, but you're allowed," Bucky said, bumping his right shoulder into Steve's left. "You died for your country. They can't ask anything else of you." Steve looked back up at him, meeting his gaze. "You did clear things up with Hermione, though, right? I don't know if bringing this sort of thing up while the both of you are all tender from misunderstandings is the best way to go about it."

"Yeah. We're all right, I think. When did you get so..."

"Wise?"

Steve snorted in amusement and pulled his hands out of his pockets.

Bucky shrugged. "You're a punk, you know that, right?"

"Jerk," Steve returned affectionately. He reached down and squeezed Bucky's hand. "So what you're saying is, I'm probably the one better suited to bringing it up to Peggy and Hermione, huh?"

"Oh, yeah," Bucky said, swinging their clasped hands between them as they started walking back to the women. "If they freak out, you're more durable _and_ we can just fall back on your I-don't-know-how-to-talk-to-women thing." They both laughed.

* . * . *

Hermione did not immediately balk at the idea of polyamory when Steve brought it up but she did have some reservations about it. So she did what she'd always done when faced with an unknown and an obstacle. She researched it.

And once she had plenty of facts, she sought out advice. In the past, she might have gone to Professor McGonagall or Peggy, as her mentor. Now, though, she sought out Peggy because she was also part of the situation.

"It's not that I don't think it could work, there are examples of polyamorous relationships that do. It's just, I don't know if it will work for _us_ ," she said.

Peggy smiled and nodded, seeming to think over what she wanted to say before saying it. "The serum enhanced every part of Steve. Not just his body, his mind, or his senses but his emotions as well. I have no doubt that he loves all three of us." She paused to gauge Hermione's reaction. "I have no doubts it's possible to love three people because I don't have the serum and I love two. James is in the same position. Despite the fact that to us he died five years ago, we still love him."

"Were you three together during the war?" Hermione asked.

"No. I don't know if it ever crossed their minds. I didn't have feelings for James for... years after the war."

"But what if I... can't—or don't want to—I mean, I'm older than you now and I still see you as a mentor and it's weird and I don't..." Hermione shook her head. She might as well come out and say her problem. If she couldn't communicate this simple thing then any further relationship with any of them might be doomed. "I'm not attracted to women. Are you bisexual? I had no idea that Steve was and, I mean, I have a lot of questions about that. Would we all... together, every time? Would we split off into couples?"

Peggy laughed and shook her head, "Slow down, slow down. First, I am also attracted to women. After the war, I was in a relationship with a woman named Angie for a time. That doesn't mean you and I have to do anything sexual, though. If you'd rather have girls' night where we drink wine and paint one another's nails and go see a film while the other two are otherwise occupied that's fine." She glanced down. "I don't think he was suggesting immediately falling into anyone else's bed beside the one we're each currently in. And no, I don't think we'd all have sex together at all unless we were all comfortable with that." She looked back up to Hermione. "What do you think? Did that help alleviate any of your worries? Are you still uncomfortable?"

Hermione took a deep breath and thought about it, letting her shoulders sag back into the armchair where she was sitting. "So... close friendship with romantic undertones with no expectations of sex unless we agree to it. That does make it sound much less... taboo and unknown."

"I understand your fears regarding it. While James and I only have to worry about getting to know and possibly learning to love you, you're in a much more difficult position. Steve probably didn't suggest it at the best time as it probably feels like he wants to bring two strangers into your relationship and your bed. Sometimes his through-the-front door strategies aren't the best, at least not when it comes to women. I think he might have done well to wait to see how well the four of us get along before suggesting a relationship like this but what's done is done."

Hermione nodded and then grinned. "Why don't we have one of those girl nights tonight? I've got a book of spells for pampering that I received last year and never had a chance to play with. I mean, if you're okay with magic?"

Peggy smiled. "I've only really seen Apparition and some basics. Getting to see that side of magic might be fun."


	10. A Soldier of Winter

**A Soldier of Winter**

 _SHIELD is about to launch the newest in next-generation defense until Nick Fury finds a dangerous secret right under his nose. Steve and Hermione are pulled into the conspiracy and it's up to them and their friends to uncover the dire truth hidden below the surface._

Pairing: Bucky/Hermione/Peggy/Steve  
Rating: mature  
Warnings: Character Death, Graphic Violence, Prejudice Against Magic Users  
Tropes: Coworkers (SHIELD), Time Travel, Bucky Barnes Lives!, Sirius Black Lives, AU – Repealed Statute of Secrecy, Hits Stations of Canon of CA:TWS  
Words: 19,423  
Original Release Date: 29 Jan 2019

* * *

"I always wondered how Stark could act the way he did if he'd had you in his life."

Peggy gave a little shrug of her shoulders and answered Nick. "Well, Howard and I were friends when I saw him last. We must have had a falling out between then and when Tony was born." She was sitting on the edge of his desk and they'd been talking for at least half an hour. She was waiting for Steve to return from the mission he went on this morning. They were going out for lunch when he got back. "I wish I knew what changed."

Nick nodded in understanding but there wasn't much to add. The only people who could have told the truth of it were dead or erased. She didn't know how else to describe the old-her disappearing from the world. Her mind briefly thought of the daughter she wouldn't know but Nick changed the subject before she could dwell on those thoughts. "Speaking of change. I added you to my shortlist of replacements for Director should I die. Things have changed a lot since the 50s but I'm sure you'd still be the best choice."

"You didn't have to do that, Nick. You're right, so much has changed. I don't know if I'm the best qualified for it."

"You are. You had a vision then and now you can pick it up again. Well, if I die. I don't plan on doing that anytime soon." He gave her a little grin and she returned it.

Something on his desk issued a beep. He tapped a button which flashed up holographic text that displayed: _STRIKE teams have returned._ There was a second from STRIKE DELTA that said: _SR is pissed abt diff op._ He dismissed both notifications and continued with the conversation. "One of the difficult parts of the job is deciding which projects should receive the funding."

"That hasn't changed at least. Even when we were just starting up with Howard backing us, some projects were just too ambitious or financially risky."

"Secretary Pierce's opinion weighs a lot in the decision-making. We choose which to present to him and he chooses of those which to present to Congress, which is a good thing. He's about the only politician I can stand."

Peggy pressed her lips together to hide a frown. "When did SHIELD stop being privately funded?"

"The 70s, I think? I was just starting out."

The door opened and Steve stormed in. "You just can't stop yourself from lying, can you?"

Nick didn't raise his voice. "I didn't lie. Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours."

"Which you didn't feel obliged to share." His entire body was tense and she had a feeling their meal was going to be spent venting his frustration with the way things were handled. "Hey Peggy," he added tersely.

She didn't answer.

"I'm not obliged to do anything," Nick answered, sounding bored.

Steve's voice went quiet, "Those hostages could have died."

"I sent the greatest soldier in history to make sure that didn't happen." He glanced at Peggy and she wasn't sure if her poker face was strong enough to cover what she thought of that comment. Steve may be a super soldier but he wasn't perfect. Every person he didn't save weighed on him and for Nick to play that card was low. She wondered if she was too close to the situation to see it clearly. In the 50s as a director of SHIELD, she'd operated as the lead agent rather than the more hands-off delegating that Nick did. SHIELD was too big an organization now to operate it as she'd done then. If she were Director now, would she be capable of seeing the big picture and not get bogged down in the details of one agent? Or three, considering how Bucky and Hermione also worked for SHIELD. She had a feeling she couldn't be impartial.

"Soldiers trust each other. That's what makes it an army not a bunch of guys running around shooting guns."

Nick stood and leaned forward onto his desk—the first sign that he had a problem with Steve's attitude. "The last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye."

Peggy stood from where she'd been sitting on the edge of the desk and Steve glanced at her. He exhaled and clenched his jaw, then returned his attention to Nick.

"Look," Nick said, "I didn't want you doing anything you weren't comfortable with. Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything."

"I can't lead a mission if the people I'm leading have missions of their own."

"It's called compartmentalization; nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows them all." This Peggy understood. It was a tactic employed by every military and intelligence agency the world over. She'd had higher clearance than he and Bucky during the war, and after. She supposed that if Nick's recommendation for Director was considered, she would again.

"Except you," Steve said. He was doing his best to glare a hole in Nick's forehead.

"I have a higher security clearance than you do. Or did you not get that memo?" he snarked. Then he leaned back and glanced at Peggy. He seemed to think for a moment before saying, "You're wrong about me; I do share. I'm nice like that." He tilted his head toward the door. "Take a walk with me." Steve nodded and they headed towards the door. "You too, Carter," Nick called. She followed.

* . * . *

Peggy held her tongue until she and Steve were in the car. "Those—what did Nick call them? Helicarriers?—were terrifying. Eliminating a thousand hostiles a minute? What on earth would..." she shook her head and exhaled heavily. She signaled as she pulled up to the end of the bridge leading from the SHIELD garages. She looked over at Steve.

"You weren't just dressing him down, were you? You don't think anything good can come from them, either."

"The way he framed it? Hell, no. Killing people before they commit a crime? Sounds a bit like tyranny," he shook his head. They were quiet for a moment as Peggy maneuvered the car into the late-morning traffic. "You were quiet in there. I thought you agreed with him." She reached over and patted his hand. He flipped it over to hold hers.

"I agreed with him about the clearance levels. We're all Level Sixes—"

"Hermione's a Level Seven M."

"I'd forgotten about that. She's a department leader, isn't she?" Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him nod. "So she already has access to classified information you don't. You should be used to that. That's how it worked in the army too. SSR and Project Rebirth were classified. The tactical team wasn't supposed to know about Rebirth and your transformation."

"Didn't stop me from telling Bucky," he said, sounding petulant.

She grinned. "Yes, well, you weren't supposed to."

"When have I ever followed orders when they didn't make sense?" He squeezed her hand and she glanced at him.

"When, indeed?" She signaled and merged into another lane. They were quiet for the rest of the short ride to the restaurant. Once there, their conversation centered on what they wanted to order and their feelings about the books they were currently reading.

As they were finishing up, Steve set his glass down and leaned back in his chair. "What's it like being married?" There was a wistfulness to his countenance, a longing in his blue eyes that he didn't hide from her.

She let an amused grin cross her lips before also relaxing a bit. "That's a strange question. You've been with Hermione almost as long as I've been with Bucky."

"But not married."

"We all live together," she said. He frowned and looked down at his hands in his lap. Peggy could only handle so much of that disappointed face before she felt her resolve crumbling. "It's... nice. To know he's there to take care of me if I need him to. Having someone hold you after a case or mission doesn't go to plan or something horrible happens that you couldn't control, he's there to reassure me that I did the best I could. He doesn't let me let the bad thoughts win."

Steve started to grin as she answered.

"The sex isn't so bad, either," she added in a softer voice.

He glanced up, his eyebrows raised as he nodded in agreement. His ears even turned pink. Unfortunately, he latched on to the darker part of her words. "I didn't know you had bad thoughts."

"Sometimes."

He swallowed and nodded again. When he met her gaze again, the wistfulness was gone and in its place was a genuine smile. "Happy anniversary, Peggy. I hope you and Bucky have a good week in Paris."

"Mmm, thank you. Maybe you can sweep Hermione away at the end of the week and meet us in Scotland. I hear Gretna Green is still operating."

He chuckled. "Maybe."

And that was the end of the conversation. The server chose that moment to bring the bill and Steve was already pulling his wallet out of his pocket to pay.

* . * . *

Peggy drove Steve back to the Triskelion to collect his bike. They parted with a hug—it wouldn't do to get caught kissing on the cameras monitoring the garage unless all four of them were on the same page regarding the exposure of their relationship. At lunch, she'd mentioned she would be heading to a spa for an hour before meeting Bucky to take a cab to the airport.

Hermione was probably still at work and who knew what Bucky was up to. Probably taking the time to read something from Hermione's library. He said he liked her books on magic because it was like the science fiction pulps he used to read, except he knew someone who could actually _do_ the things in them which made them all the more interesting.

Steve's plan for the afternoon was a stop at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. They had a new exhibit that featured "Captain America and the Howling Commandos." He thought it was a ridiculous name for their tactical unit but it wasn't anything to call them out on; the history books had been calling them the Howlies for decades now. He was supposed to give the exhibit a thorough reading in case there was anything incorrect. He didn't mind but that wasn't his main draw. He was interested in all the other stuff that particular museum had to offer. After he checked over his part, he planned to lose himself in the other fascinating exhibits the museum had up.

The museum didn't stay open long enough.

Steve was still reading about the fascinating trip into space and to the moon by the time the guards were ushering everyone out. He wasn't ready to go home, though, so he spent time driving around the city. At one point he parked to watch the sunset beyond the skyline. Afterward, when the light of twilight had faded completely he decided on getting dinner out instead of heading home.

It was late when he finally parked his bike and headed up to their apartment. Hermione was probably already in bed and Peggy and Bucky were still in the air, somewhere over the Atlantic. Steve yawned on his way up the stairs. It'd been a decent day. He'd gone running with Sam, had lunch with Peggy, and spent the afternoon learning new things. Natasha had endangered the mission and Nick had shown them a terrifying future but Steve had done his job and the hostages had been saved and that was all he could control.

Sharon, Peggy's great-niece, waved at him as she was heading down to the basement with a laundry basket with a phone pressed between her shoulder and her ear. At the landing for their apartments, Steve stopped short of opening the door.

There was music playing.

That in itself wasn't particularly alarming, Hermione loved music and listened to it often, but it wasn't one of her favorite genres. It was something that he or Peggy or Bucky would have put on. Plus, for being almost midnight, it was loud. He thought about sneaking in through the window but decided against it. After all, Hermione was inside.

He opened the door cautiously and shut it without a sound. The lights were off. Not even a flickering shadow from a candle moved on the walls. He had a feeling this wasn't some oddly romantic evening Hermione had set up.

He'd left his shield in Peggy's car this morning and he could just see it leaning against the wall where he normally kept it. He couldn't reach it without stepping out into the main area of their living space. He took a deep breath and did take that step, looking to his left where the record player sat on its sideboard. In the chair next to it sat Nick. "I don't remember giving you a key to this apartment," Steve said.

"Do you really think I'd need one?"

Steve turned on the light to see Nick better. He was bloody and bruised like he'd been attacked. Nick held out his hand to quiet whatever Steve was going to say and then turned off the lamp next to him. It swathed him in shadow again. "My wife kicked me out," he said at the same time he turned his phone so Steve could see the message written on it. _Ears everywhere_.

Steve pursed his lips. Of course, there were. He shouldn't be surprised. To continue the ruse he said, "I didn't know you were married."

Nick turned his phone and typed on it again. He tilted his head and said, "I don't advertise it." He flipped his phone around. The next line read: _SHIELD compromised._

Steve felt those words like a blow to the head. Compromised. If Nick was this torn up, what did that mean for the rest of the agents? Where was Hermione? Were Peggy and Bucky safe? "Who all knows about your wife?"

"Just my friends." The third line of text consisted of just three words: _You and me._ He stood up, slow and stiff like he was decades older than he was. He took a deep breath like he was going to say something else when there was a sharp pop over the loud music. All at once a klaxon alarm started up, a shadowy figure pointed something at Nick, there were two flashes of light and another loud pop. Steve could see the whites of Nick's eyes as he put his hands around his middle and slipped to his knees. Hermione—dressed in pajamas but brandishing her wand—ran out of their bedroom. She took less than a second to look around and assess the situation before running directly to Nick and dropping to her knees beside him.

"Steve, call an ambulance!" she shouted between a mix of Latin and Greek words. The music turned off and the lights came back up, bright in the dead of night, even as he was pulling his phone from his pocket and calling the emergency line.

The shrill ring of sirens seemed to take forever before paramedics arrived. They pushed Hermione out of the way even as she tried to explain what she had been doing. "Move out of the way, magic user," one of them said. She backed off a little but watched with worried eyes as the paramedics strapped Nick to a gurney and took him out of their apartment.

She moved to stand beside Steve. When the apartment was silent she held up her hand, palm up. Her skin and the sleeves of her pajamas were red with blood but laying on her palm was a flash drive—the same one that Natasha had had on the Lemurian Star that morning. She held up Nick's phone in the other hand, waving it enough so he could see the text was still on the screen. "He said not to trust anyone," she murmured, probably too quietly for a bug to pick up. She looked up at him, eyes wide, before speaking louder. "Let's get to the hospital. We should probably call—Maria. Maybe Natasha?"

He nodded, agreeing. She flicked her wand to change her pajamas into daywear, grabbed her coat and the keys to the car, and headed out the door. He couldn't help but notice the bloodstains on her sleeves transferred to her new clothes. It wasn't the sort of mistake she'd normally make. He followed quickly. If she was that upset and distracted, he ought to be the one driving.

* . * . *

While Steve drove, he got Hermione to make the calls to Maria and Natasha. They'd thought Maria would be home in New York but she was in DC and was closer to the hospital than they were. They only beat Natasha by a few minutes.

Those few minutes seemed to last forever. They were allowed into a viewing room beside the operating theater. As soon as they were inside, Hermione started wringing her hands. "No, he was attacked with spells." She paced back and forth, anxiety practically seeping from her pores before she opened the door and flagged down a nurse. "Excuse me, please, Nick Fury, he's just there," she pointed back to the operating room. "He was attacked with two deadly spells and they're only treating him with Muggle, I mean, mundane medicine! I told the paramedics that he needed magical treatment. Please, it's urgent! Request one of the Muggle-born healers from Mt Rainer's Magical Hospital."

The nurse seemed understanding to the problem but she took a few steps into the room and shook her head. "Doctors McIntire and Paul," she said pointing at the two men working over Fury, "They're staunchly anti-magic. Suggesting they even ask consultation to a healer at Mt Rainer is a no-go. I'm sorry."

"But those spells—they don't react positively with mundane treatment. They're insidious!"

The nurse shook her head, "I'm sorry. Those two are the best at what they do, I'm sure your friend—"

"—boss."

"—boss is in good hands."

Maria was standing nearby, her usual stoic expression gone, replaced with intense worry.

Just as the nurse left the room Natasha rushed in. Her gaze was wide and if Steve had to put a name to her expression, he'd use the word fearful. "Is he going to make it?" she asked, glancing at Steve.

"I don't know."

"Tell me about the attacker."

"Apparated in, cast two spells, Apparated out. Wore dark clothes." Steve shook his head. He wished he had more to go on.

Hermione reached forward and gripped the window sill like she needed to brace herself. "What color were the spells?"

Natasha and Maria looked at her and then at Steve before turning their attention back to the macabre scene in the window. Fury was covered in a bloody sheet, the oxygen mask covered most of his face, wires and tubes seemed to wind to the half dozen of machines surrounding the table and the doctors. He could hear the heart monitor beeping steadily. "One was purple, looked like fire. The other was white."

"Dolohov," the name seemed to come out of Hermione on a sigh and she leaned back and balled her hands into fists. She turned around and shook her head.

"Tell me about this Dolohov," Natasha said, though she didn't look away from Fury.

"Born in '58 to a known associate of Tom Riddle. Participated in the first Wizarding War and imprisoned for it. Spent fourteen years in Azkaban with the Dementors. Participated in the second Wizarding War. Created his own spells, it's unknown if he shared them with anyone. Anyone hit with the full force of that purple fire typically dies within hours. I had to take ten potions daily for three weeks after I was struck with a dampened version of it."

Steve looked at her. Despite reading a few of the books about the Second Wizarding War, he knew some things weren't documented. Hearing that she'd been hit with a spell like that made his stomach knot up. "What's it do?"

"Pain," she said, glancing away. Her voice had grown thick with unshed tears. "The internal organs just..." she shook her head. "Nick's not going to make it."

"You don't know that," Natasha said. It was clear in her tone that she was reluctant to believe in her own words.

The silence that fell over them was thick with tension. He could see the reflection of Maria's and Hermione's faces, both of whom were standing there watching the doctors work with tears slipping down their cheeks. Natasha was whispering under her breath, a prayer, or maybe a mantra. Beseeching Fury not to die.

They could see when the doctors realized the insidiousness of the spells Hermione had tried to warn them about. There was bafflement in their eyes and an increased urgency to their movements.

Then the beeping Steve had been listening to turned erratic.

"No," Maria whispered. The doctors shuffled around, working faster. One grabbed the defibrillator and used it. The beeping continued its random pattern. They tried again but after the second shock, the beeping turned to a steady tone. They injected Fury with something and everyone seemed to hold their breath.

Steve turned away. He couldn't watch any longer. It didn't stop the sounds from coming through the window, however. He could still hear the doctors moving, could still hear them declare the time of death as 3:03 am. Had they really been here that long already? It felt like the attack had happened only moments ago.

Maria was the first to leave, wiping her face with quick movements. For as long as he'd known Fury, Maria had been right there. Second in command. She was probably slipping away to cry in privacy. He looked back to see Hermione had closed her eyes and lowered her face. He didn't think she was praying but he didn't want to interrupt the doleful act, either. Natasha hadn't lost her composure but she was still staring blankly into the operating room when they pulled the curtain closed to prepare the body for viewing.

A nurse came and retrieved them, directed them to a small waiting room for privacy. The plaque next to the door claimed it was a family room. Steve asked Hermione and Natasha if they wanted anything and after receiving their answers went in search of a coffee machine. When he returned, the room was just as quiet and still as when he'd left it. Maria had returned and the three women just sat still like statutes. He joined them, offering the coffees he'd gone in search of as comfort for their vigil. Maria and Hermione took them from him. Maria sipped hers but Hermione just kept her hands around the cup, like she needed the grounding effect the heat had on her hands. As he sat with them he did not just mourn Nick. He thought about what he'd been told.

SHIELD was compromised.

Only he and Hermione knew about it.

Don't trust anyone.

And it all came down to the flash drive of data in Hermione's pocket. Steve didn't know enough about the sort of data that might be on it to look at it and understand. He didn't even know if Hermione knew that sort of thing. Natasha and Maria might. But could they be trusted? Were Peggy and Bucky compromised? Were they safe? Could _they_ be trusted? He was vaguely aware of hours passing as his thoughts spiraled around themselves.

Finally, the door opened and a nurse stepped in. All four of them stood at once and it seemed to fluster her for a moment but then she said softly, "You can see him now. Say your goodbyes and all. You'll only have about twenty minutes."

Maria and Natasha led the way behind the nurse. Steve stood at the wall and let them have their time and privacy. Hermione slipped out first, touching Steve's arm as she went. The part of Steve's brain that was always aware of the time noticed that Maria left around the eighteenth minute. Natasha stayed the longest. The nurse stepped into the room and glanced at Steve. He nodded and approached her. "Natasha," he said softly. She touched Nick on the forehead, a silent benediction, before she turned and left the room at a fast walk. He followed.

He didn't know if she wanted his company but he felt the need to offer it. "Natasha?" he said again, trying not to draw attention to them.

Instead of letting him catch up to her, she turned on her toes and asked, "What was Fury doing in your apartment?"

He raised his shoulders in a heavy shrug, raised his eyebrows in what he hoped was an innocent look and breathed out, "I don't know."

"Cap." Steve turned around to see Agent Brock Rumlow. "They want you back at SHIELD."

"Yeah, give me a second."

"They want you now," Rumlow insisted.

"Okay." The other man's insistence felt odd but maybe that was just his blunt personality. Maybe there was another mission. Maybe someone wanted to debrief him. Rumlow nodded and turned back to walk towards the other agents. Steve counted at least five of the STRIKE team standing in the hallway. He looked back at Natasha and she gave him a disappointed look.

"You're a terrible liar." As she turned and walked away he heard the command, "STRIKE team escort Captain Rogers back to SHIELD immediately," come over the radio of one of the men behind him. Something felt wrong.

Or was he just being paranoid from Fury's last words?

Rumlow was considerate enough to let Steve stop at the car and pick up his shield. He didn't know if that meant there was a mission or not. He rode in the back of the van with the rest of the STRIKE team and when they got to the Triskelion, Rumlow told him he was wanted in the Director's office. He took the time to put on his uniform, which would have been protocol if there was a mission and then he took the elevator up.

When he got there, Sharon Carter was just leaving. She nodded at him and he returned the gesture, then focused his attention on the older man standing in the doorway of Fury's office.

"Ah, Captain. I'm Alexander Pierce."

Steve recognized the name of the Secretary of Defense. "Sir, it's an honor," he said, completing the handshake that Pierce had offered.

"It's mine. My father served in the 101st. Come on," he welcomed Steve into Fury's office, the Director's office. He handed Steve a stack of photographs and went on to talk about an experience with Fury saving hostages in Colombia. Steve noted the details in the photograph—how Fury didn't have the eyepatch he'd worn when he'd known him nor the black trenchcoat.

After shuffling through several things on the conference table opposite Fury's desk, Pierce joined Steve on the couches. He finished his story and Steve asked, "So you gave him a promotion?"

"I've never had any cause to regret it." Steve could understand that. While Fury's compartmentalization and misdirection had frustrated him, he'd been a good leader. Steve let his gaze slip from Pierce as he processed what he had told him and contemplated what he wasn't saying. He drew his attention back with the same question Natasha had asked him. "Captain, why was Nick at your apartment last night?"

This time, Steve didn't try to put on a look. He met Pierce's imploring gaze and then let his slip down again. He only knew three things and they still weren't coming together for him. SHIELD compromised. No one knows. Don't trust anyone. He didn't know what he was supposed to do with that information and said as much. "I don't know."

"Did you know it was bugged?" Pierce asked.

Steve looked back up and told the truth. "I did... because Nick told me."

"He tell you that he was the one who bugged it?"

Steve met Pierce's gaze. He could almost feel the other man's scrutinizing look on his skin, digging into his pores like he could dig what he wanted to hear out of him. Determining if he believed him or not. Steve did believe him. Fury had seemed like the kind of guy who would bug people's apartments without remorse. After another moment, Pierce shifted to press one of the buttons on the table. The screen on the wall changed to an image of the hostile team leader of yesterday's mission. Pierce dumped more intel on him regarding the team leader and painted a picture of Fury as hiring the pirates as a cover to sell classified data.

"If you really knew Nick Fury, you know that's not true," Steve said. He said it with an air of confidence he wasn't sure he felt but again, this entire thing didn't feel right. He just couldn't see the picture from the pieces of the puzzle he held. He needed to talk to someone that he trusted.

Pierce nodded and said, "Why do you think we're talking?" He got up and walked towards the floor-to-ceiling windows behind Fury's desk. Steve stood as well but planted his feet and kept his hands relaxed at his waist. He had a feeling Pierce was going to lay some of his cards on the table now that Steve had passed some test. "Tensions have been high for a long time between the people and the...beasts." He glanced back at Steve to judge his reception to the slur. Steve had clenched his jaw but otherwise tried to keep an impassive expression. "I think Nick received intelligence about an upcoming war between the International Federation of Wizards and the governments of our world. The wizards see themselves as superior to us, more sophisticated, more advanced. And they're maneuvering to seize control. They've already started infiltration in places like England and France. SHIELD stands opposed to them and I believe that's what got Nick killed." He turned around and tucked both of his hands into his pockets. "I don't think they're working alone. Captain, you were the last one to see him alive and I don't think that was an accident. I don't think you do, either. So I'm going to ask again. Why was he there?"

Steve did not like Pierce's implications. Hermione was not a mole for some extremist organization. He held his tongue on all the things he wanted to say in the face of Pierce's suggestion and told as much of the truth as he could. "He told me not to trust anyone."

Pierce tilted his head minutely like that information worked in his favor and said, "I wonder if that included him. Or Agent Granger."

"I'm sorry. Those were his last words. Excuse me." He turned to pick up his shield. He put it on his back and started to walk out of the office when Pierce called his attention back. Steve only half turned where he stood, unwilling to return to the room and continue conversing with Pierce while he was insinuating that Hermione had had a hand in murdering Fury.

"Captain," he said, having sat down on the corner of the desk, "Someone magical murdered my friend. I'm going to find out who and why. Anyone who gets in my way is going to regret it." He paused to give his words weight and repeated, "Anyone."

Steve did not shift his jaw in recognition of the threat but he did answer. "Understood." He walked away.

He headed directly to the elevator, ready to leave the building, to get out, go home, take a moment to breathe and think and maybe talk to Hermione. He looked out over the Potomac and the island SHIELD had claimed as headquarters. "Operations Control," he told the elevator. It confirmed his identity and started to close the door when a few more people stopped it and boarded. He recognized Rumlow's voice but didn't turn around.

"Forensics," Rumlow told the elevator. "Cap." he greeted.

Steve couldn't just ignore him so he took one more second to look out at the early morning sunlight shining over the river and wish for a quiet moment to sketch the scene and then turned around. "Rumlow."

As the elevator started to descend, Rumlow and the two men who got on the elevator with him seemed to shuffle anxiously where they stood. Steve thought that was strange. He'd seen men about to go into battle shift nervously like that but he'd never seen Rumlow do it. If they were only going to Forensics, they shouldn't be so tense. He looked them over briefly before looking the other way and up at the mirror in the top corner hiding the camera. One of the men—Jackson?—had his hand over his taser rod.

The elevator slowed and dinged, opening the doors for four more men, all four in suits and two carrying briefcases. "Administrations level," one of them said. Eight men in an elevator was a tight fit. One of the suits did offer apologies as he shuffled in behind Steve, causing him to move away from the rail to stand more in the middle.

The doors closed and they restarted their descent. "I'm sorry what happened with Fury," Rumlow said, turning his head to glance at Steve before turning back forward. "It's messed up, what happened to him."

"Thank you," Steve said. He hoped the words came across as sincere even as he watched Rumlow shift nervously again.

Two of the suits were whispering though the sound of it was too quiet even for Steve to hear any words clearly; there was no way they were talking to one another. He glanced in their direction to confirm what he was hearing and was faced with more nervous anxiety from them. He watched a drop of sweat slip down one of the men's temple and briefly wondered if it wasn't a conversation he was whispering so much as a checklist of things to do. Or a pep talk. The elevator dinged again and Rollins and two more men stepped on, heading to Records.

Rollins and the other two were not low-level clerks. They were STIKE team members. Very rarely did anyone, especially STRIKE, venture to the dusty basement where they kept the Records office. The door closed, the shuffling started up again, and Steve sighed softly.

He'd thought some of these guys were his friends.

He had a brief pang of loss as he thought about the camaraderie he'd had with Dum Dum and Jim and Gabe and how that sort of thing could have happened with STRIKE. He put it behind him and, now that he could see clearly what was about to happen, quipped, "Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?"

There was a pause, a moment of quiet as the shuffling stopped, as someone realized they'd just been made, and then Rollins employed his taser rod and turned around.

Everything seemed to happen at once. All ten men attacked him, one grabbing his shoulders, another removing the shield, another two detached the handles of their briefcases to expose magnetic handcuffs. Steve punched, blocked, kicked. Solar plexus on that one, shin bone on this one, throat of a third. He didn't stop to think about which body part belonged to which man, which friend was swinging, aiming to land a hit. At that moment they were all enemies.

And he knew how to take down enemies.

When Rumlow held up his hands, taser rods in both, and claimed the entire thing wasn't personal, Steve couldn't help the angry twist of his mouth as he grappled with the man. When they were all down, he shoved down the worry about if he'd landed any deadly blows and restarted the elevator.

As the doors started to open, he saw a dozen men with rifles aimed at him. One might have shouted, "Drop the shield," but he wasn't listening. He twisted, half spinning on his feet in the small bit of floor space that he had to work with, shield out and aiming for the glass wall. The edge cut right through the glass and the cable he'd aimed for.

The elevator dropped and he felt his stomach in his throat for half a second. He crouched, bracing for the car to drop all the way down. It didn't. Emergency breaks slowed the car quickly but efficiently. He was between floors. He forced his hand between the doors of the top floor, saw more STRIKE members jogging his way, and forced the doors closed again.

"Give it up, Rogers, you have nowhere to go!" the team leader shouted through the door.

Steve looked around, looked _down_ , made sure the strap on his shield was secure and flung himself through the glass towards the ground.

He spread his limbs to try and slow the descent, _Bucky's going to kill me_ , flitting through his head. Before he hit the glass roof of the foyer, he folded his body as tightly behind his shield as he could. The impact with the ground stunned him for a moment and it took him a few seconds to force himself to get up. As soon as he'd retaken his feet he ran towards the garage. He needed to get his bike...

Shit.

His bike was at home.

Bucky's bike was there, though. _Bucky is so going to kill me._

He'd never been more grateful for the biometric start Stark had insisted on than the moment a flick of his thumb had the bike roaring to life. He spun the bike around and gunned it.

Steve and the bike made it through the doors before they closed shut with a loud thud. He sighed as a jet swooped over the bridge. "Stand down, Captain Rogers, stand down," came over the intercom. He saw the machine gun underneath shift and take aim at him as the message was repeated. He leaned forward, increased his speed, and as they started strafing the bridge he put the maneuverability of the bike to the test.

He flung his shield off his back at an arc and it stuck into the propulsion engine, damaging it. He knew that wouldn't be enough to bring it down. He took a deep breath, stood up, then pulled back on the breaks. As he flipped, somersaulting onto the top of the jet, he could just make out the sound of the bike flipping end over end. _I am in so much trouble when Bucky hears about this._

It was obvious the pilot did not know what to do with Steve disabling and damaging the jet engines by being _on top of it_. It tilted, turned, spun, and when all was said and done Steve was on solid ground on the other side of the bridge and the jet was disabled and slowly sliding off the bridge towards the water. He bolted before Pierce could send another jet or more people after him, slipping into one of the public bathrooms at the Lincoln Memorial.

He took a moment to catch his breath, unzipped one of the pockets on his suit and stuck his arm elbow deep into it. He pulled out sweatpants and a hoodie. He didn't have any other shoes but he could at least disguise himself a little. In another pocket, he pulled the little compact mirror Sirius Black had given him.

His mind went down the list of who owned one and who he could trust before finally saying, clearly but quietly, "Harry Potter."

The image shifted from his reflection to the black-haired, bespectacled man. "Potter," he answered. When he registered who it was, he said, "Steve! What's going on?"

Maybe Steve's morning was more visible on his face than he'd thought. "The director of SHIELD was assassinated. By a magic user. The Secretary of Defense is going to pin it on Hermione. There's probably a manhunt in progress as we speak. I know they've already attempted to... detain me."

Interestingly, Harry did not freak out. Instead, he nodded and took led on the situation. His gaze moved a little like he was checking Steve's location. "You're not with her?" He didn't give Steve time to answer before shaking his head. "Hermione will have a go-bag, probably at your apartment. Where are you? Sirius and I can be there shortly as backup."

"Lincoln Memorial men's restroom. It's pretty empty at the moment. Need me to go somewhere else?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Be there in less than two minutes." The image of Harry disappeared, leaving Steve's reflection staring back at him. He reached up and ruffled his hair, knocking some more glass from it.

There wasn't much noise but suddenly, Steve knew he wasn't alone. "Steve?" Harry said. Steve opened the stall door and looked at them. Sirius was standing next to his friend, wand out and alert.

Harry tucked a pencil into his pocket. "All right. Do you know where she is now?"

"She might still be at the hospital."

There were the sounds of military boots on concrete, fast approaching. Harry nodded to himself, pulled a thin cloak out of his pocket and threw it at Steve. "Quick. Your suit's probably got a tracker in it." Steve stripped his suit as quickly as he could and redressed in the sweats. He pulled the cloak over him. "Leave the suit, shoes too." Steve shucked his shoes. "Pull the hood up, walk behind us. Padfoot?"

Sirius was already nodding, his form shifting until there was a large black dog in his place. "Quiet now," Harry said. He tapped his clothes, changing them into workout wear similar to Steve's, and then walked towards the restroom exit. Steve could feel the cold concrete under his feet as he followed behind them.

Harry opened and held the door, ostensibly for the dog, but also for Steve. They were a dozen STRIKE members, guns held ready when they came around the corner. Harry held up his hands when they aimed their guns at him for a moment. "Whoa, man."

The team leader looked him over, frowned at the dog, and then gestured with a tilt of his head. "Be on your way. Don't bring a dog in here again." They didn't even look in Steve's direction.

"Service dog, but sure." Harry and the black dog started walking away from the river, back to the main footpath for the National Mall and Steve followed, wrapped up in the obviously magical cloak.

* . * . *

Natasha opened the door wide. Potter, with his messy black hair and bright green eyes, stood on her stoop with a giant black dog. She glanced around, not seeing anyone else, and let them in. She didn't see Steve but she knew Potter had that Invisibility Cloak so she assumed he was using it. She was right.

As soon as she closed the door and engaged the three locks, Steve—wearing sweats and a hoodie—appeared in the middle of her small living room.

"Are you okay?" Granger asked as she moved to hug him. He nodded and wrapped his arm around her. After the quick hug, she turned. "This is Padfoot," she said, pointing at the dog. Before their eyes, the dog stood up on his hind legs and shimmered, turning into a man with dark hair. Age was written into the lines of his face but the smile he aimed Natasha's way seemed almost to blind her to it. She wondered if he'd ever used his charisma as a weapon like she had. He was wearing simple jeans and a sweater but held himself like he knew the weight of combat gear. "Or Sirius Black, if you prefer the human version," Granger added. Black aimed his genial smile in her direction. "And Harry Potter."

"Melissa," Potter said, offering his hand to her in a greeting. Natasha pointedly did not roll her eyes at his continued use of her fake name and even offered him her real one instead as she shook his outstretched hand.

"Natasha."

He nodded like he had known it all along and then turned his attention back to Granger and Steve. He took a small bag from around his wrist and handed it to Granger, who tied it to her own with a small sigh of relief. They'd already had a short briefing via ghostly animals but he seemed to want more intel. Natasha didn't blame him.

Granger spoke first. "Director Fury was assassinated by a person wearing dark clothes. Apparated into our apartment, cast two spells—one of Dolohov's specials and something else unknown, white—then Apparated out."

"Secretary Pierce seemed to think Hermione was a mole; working for the International Federation of Wizards, which he claimed was a terrorist group," Steve added.

Potter pointed a finger at Steve, "It is, actually, we've been working for months to try and get at the heart of it. They've got similar views as Grindelwald and Voldemort. Subjugation. Hermione's not a mole because they'd sooner kill her than recruit her. They don't like Muggle-borns."

"How come I haven't heard of them?" Granger asked, crossing her arms over her chest. Natasha moved from the door to stand behind the dilapidated chair.

"Take your pick," Potter said, shifting on his feet for a moment before taking a seat on Natasha's couch. "They're from the Middle East, magical news coverage is spotty over here, you haven't visited home lately," he said, ticking off each with a finger.

Granger rolled her eyes. "But if we don't have SHIELD watching them, why Nick?"

"What if it wasn't the IFW?" Natasha asked. "I've heard rumors..."

Steve glanced over his shoulder at her and then also took a seat on the couch, Granger turned as well, sitting down on the edge of the seat with her knees together. Nervous. Black sat down on the floor facing them. Natasha thought he was braver than her. She hadn't vacuumed this safehouse floor since she'd acquired the place. "Rumors about?" Steve asked.

"Unexplained assassinations over the last fifty years, often hinted at to have magical roots. Witnesses only claimed to have heard a slight pop or crack before the target collapses. They call him the Winter Soldier."

Granger nodded. "What do you think, Harry? He used Dolohov's purple fire. Steve saw the spell, I saw the effects."

Potter shook his head. "Dolohov's been on a prisoner ward in St Mungo's for eighteen months. It's not him."

"Someone else then. Someone who he might have taught the spell?" Black asked.

Steve cleared his throat. "Nick said SHIELD was compromised. I want to know what he was talking about."

Natasha slipped her hand into her pocket. She'd filched the drive off Granger at the hospital when she'd received the message on her phone that Captain Rogers and Agent Granger were fugitives from SHIELD. Natasha had wanted to know more information than that before she did anything rash but Granger had been ready for the subtle interrogation she'd planned to orchestrate. Apparently, witches had the ability to read the thoughts of others. No wonder Granger was a good agent. She pulled the familiar drive onto which she'd downloaded all the intelligence from the Lemurian Star and held it up. "Then I guess we need to learn what's on here."

They all turned to her and nodded.

"Where's Peggy?" Black asked.

"In Paris with Bucky for their anniversary," Steve answered. Natasha noticed he didn't sound as dejected about his former love interest and best friend as she expected.

"If there's a magical assassin going around killing SHIELD directors, shouldn't a wizard be with her? Just in case?"

"Are you offering?" Granger asked. When Black nodded and stood up, Potter pulled a pencil out of his pocket and tapped it with his wand. Granger pulled out her phone and turned the screen to Black. "This is where they're staying. Should have landed six hours ago." He nodded and she turned off the phone.

"Portkey to Paris," Potter said, handing the pencil over. "I can only activate two in twenty-four hours without drawing attention."

Black took the pencil. "Anything you want to tell them?"

"Be safe," Steve said at the same time Granger implored, "Go off grid if you have to." Black took a deep breath, glanced around—gave Natasha a little wave—and said some spell. He disappeared.

Potter looked at the three of them. "Where can we go to check that drive?"

"There's an internet cafe in a shopping mall nearby," Natasha said, tucking the drive back into her pocket. "Doesn't open for another two hours. Busiest times to blend in would be early-to-mid afternoon."

Potter seemed to study her face before speaking softer. "Maybe you guys can take a nap. Rest some. You've been up most of the night, haven't you?"

Granger visibly slumped like the mere word rest cut her marionette strings. "That sounds like a good idea. You'll stay up? Keep watch?"

"Of course."

Steve shuffled back in his spot on the couch and closed his eyes, seemingly content to sleep right where he sat. Granger did something similar, moving back to rest against the couch. She pulled her feet up and curled into the dusty upholstery. Natasha looked at both of them for a moment before standing and going to the bedroom. It's not that she didn't trust Potter to "keep watch." She'd just rather take a nap on her bed.

Surprising to even Natasha, she slept deeply, and it was Granger knocking on the door that woke her up. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Three in the afternoon. Time to go to the mall.

The plan was worked out without her. She didn't like not being included but it wasn't a bad plan so she didn't argue. She and Potter—Harry, he insisted she call him—would go to the internet cafe. Granger would take some potion to conceal her appearance and Steve would be under Potter's Invisibility Cloak. The two of them would be in the parking lot, waiting.

Natasha had figured there was probably a tracker built into the data on the flash drive and estimated that SHIELD would be able to triangulate their location within minutes. Given the location of the shopping mall compared to the Triskelion and the way SHIELD could manipulate the traffic grid, they probably had less than ten minutes from the instant she plugged the drive in to the time SHIELD showed up, wanting to collect.

There wasn't much they could do about it if they wanted to find out what was on the drive.

Harry stood at her side, peering over her shoulder at the screen and surreptitiously checking for trouble around the room. When she furrowed her brow he asked, "What's wrong?"

"There's high-level encryption on the data. Like an AI that keeps rewriting itself to counteract my commands."

"Can you override it?" he asked.

She gave a little shrug. She didn't want to joke about her weaknesses in front of him. She just kept at it, deciding that if she couldn't break the encryption then she could at least pinpoint where it came from.

"You guys need any help with anything?" someone asked. Natasha glanced up, registered the man in glasses and name badge as not-a-threat and then went back to following the progress of the tracker. She was about to say something, to give the assistant a lie to make him go away when Harry shifted behind her a little, blocking the screen.

"No, thank you," he said, his accent shifting to the Queen's English, "My girlfriend is trying to prove some banal point of grammar that she believes is proper English when I know it isn't. Couldn't stop arguing about it over lunch and we just had to stop in here to prove my point."

"Right, cool. So, uh, I'm Aaron, if you guys need anything."

"Thanks. We'll be out soon once she realizes the point is mine." Aaron the assistant gave them another nod and then walked on to the next person using a terminal.

Natasha pulled the drive from the computer, closing all the SHIELD tabs automatically after a slight moment of lag.

"Did you figure it out?" Harry asked his accent back to his normal lower class one.

"I couldn't break it, no," she said as she walked out of the cafe with him keeping pace beside her. "But I did get a location. It's in New Jersey."

"All right. I guess that's where we're going next." He glanced up and around at the crowd they were walking through, his eyes narrowed. "Are you included in the manhunt?"

"I don't think so, but it's best to blend in." She let her gaze flick in the direction he had been looking at. "I see them. Don't speed up, we're just a couple strolling through the mall."

"You call this strolling?" he asked. There was a tease to his tone, even as he put his arm around her shoulders. He nudged her jaw with his knuckle and she turned her head towards him and he kissed her forehead just as they passed the two SHIELD agents looking through the crowd.

There were no other SHIELD teams between them and the exit. There were four non-descript black SUVs parked out front in the fire lane, however. She wondered when the art of subtlety was lost. They stopped at the crosswalk, glancing around for where they were supposed to meet Steve and Granger, but a navy blue sedan pulled up in front of them. Natasha recognized the black-haired woman as the body Granger had shifted into. "Get in," she said.

Natasha was quick to walk around the car, climbing in the backseat. "Wheaton, New Jersey."

The car sped forward and they were quiet for as long as it took to get out into traffic. Granger reached across her body and offered her wrist, and the small bag she had tied to it, to the empty passenger seat. "There's a US atlas in there. It's small; Harry or I can enlarge it."

Steve's arm became visible for a moment as he pulled it out from under the cloak and stuck it in the bag, digging deep. The disembodied hand pulled out several small pocket-sized books, flipped through them, and then handed one back to Harry. It tucked the others back in the bag. Granger pulled her arm back and signaled, changing lanes.

Natasha watched as Harry took the small book and tapped it with his wand. It enlarged to cover his lap. "Right, New Jersey," he muttered to himself as he opened it and flicked through pages. When it was open to the right page in his lap, she pointed to the small town in the northeast area of the state.

"What's in Wheaton?" Granger asked.

"The army base where I was trained is there," Steve said. Natasha was a bit uneasy with the disembodied voice.

"I couldn't break the encryption. That's where the file on the drive is from."

"Highway or no?" Harry asked.

"No highway," Steve's answer floated out to them. "At least for now."

After three-quarters of an hour, the car slowed and came to a stop at the side of the road. "Someone else needs to drive, or we need to wait a few minutes," Granger said.

Steve discarded the cloak, already moving to get out and switch places with her.

At first, Natasha wasn't sure why, it was only as Granger stepped out of the car, bent over and groaned low and long that she understood. Granger's skin bubbled and writhed overtop of her skeleton like some horrific FX in a horror B movie. It only lasted for a few seconds but it looked painful. Steve held his arms out like he wanted to help her but after a moment she stood, looking herself again. She shared a look with him that Natasha couldn't easily translate and then went around to sit in the passenger seat.

Steve slid the seat back and got in, adjusting it quickly. He put the car back into gear and spun the tires getting back on the road.

"Who's idea was it to steal the car?" Harry asked.

Granger pointed at Steve.

Natasha squinted and leaned forward, between the seats. "Where did Captain America learn to steal a car?"

"Nazi Germany. And we're borrowing it."

Granger snorted a little giggle. Natasha leaned back in her seat and frowned, looking down at the road map on Harry's lap. They had about two more hours, at least, and it was going to be close to dark when they got there. She debated ways to pass the time and finally decided on one that would maybe help her learn more about Granger and how she and Harry were as calm as they were about being fugitives.

"So... what's in the bag?"

* . * . *

Peggy felt Bucky kiss her forehead where she was resting it against the back of Sam's couch. They'd had a whirlwind of the last—twenty-four hours? thirty-six?—she'd lost count. All she knew was Steve and Hermione were wanted and MIA and she'd spent more time on an airplane than on solid ground in the last day or so.

"I think they're here, doll," Bucky said softly. Sure enough, Peggy could hear Steve's voice, soft but clear, coming from the kitchen. There were more voices than she'd expected actually. She opened her eyes and stretched, feeling her neck pop when she tilted her head just so. She stood and Bucky followed behind her, Sirius—as a dog—had also stood and proceeded them into the kitchen where the rest of their friends and allies were.

Hermione had been talking, explaining what had happened, and stopped mid-word when she looked up and saw them. She didn't take too long to regain her composure and asked, "I thought you were in Paris?"

Peggy grinned. "Sharon called shortly after we landed, with the news that Nick had been attacked. Bucky and I were included in the SHIELD-wide message alerting us to the manhunt for fugitives from SHIELD: Captain Rogers and Agent Granger. We were already in the airport trying to get a flight back when Sirius found us."

"I tried to keep them over there," Sirius said, having returned to human form. He pulled out the chair across from Harry and dropped into it. "But, well, they were insistent that we be here and help." He shrugged.

"And Sam?" Steve asked, his eyebrows raised like he wasn't sure if he wanted to be surprised that they'd plotted his next move or worried. He was leaning back in one of Sam's kitchen chairs. His body stretched out in a long line like he was taking advantage of spreading out now that he had a moment.

"Bucky thought you might head here when we saw the state of the apartment," she said. She pulled out the last chair and sat, leaning forward over the table to engage with the others sitting there. "Where are you coming from? What have you learned?"

"SHIELD is compromised. Has been since its inception, I think," Steve said. "Arnim Zola regrew HYDRA within SHIELD, in plain sight, according to him."

"Zola?" Bucky asked. He clenched the fist of his left hand, his flesh and blood hand that magic had regrown him. "Zola was a part of SHIELD?" he asked. His tone was hard and angry and he looked at Peggy like she'd betrayed him.

She had no idea how Zola had been recruited for SHIELD.

"Operation Paperclip," Romanoff answered, looking between them with a bit of confusion on her face. She still had dirt smudged on her cheek and concrete dust in her hair. "Nazi scientists were recruited after the war. Several were assigned to SHIELD. Sometime in the 70s, he turned himself into a computer and was 'living' in an abandoned SHIELD bunker at Camp Lehigh."

"Howard," Peggy said, feeling realization wash over her like cold water. Even the hair on her arms rose at the horrifying thought. "I wouldn't have approved of that. Howard would have looked past allegiances in the name of scientific advancement." She looked down, unable to bear the accusing look she expected Bucky was still giving her. "Now it makes sense why the other me wasn't a part of his son's life. He probably started feeling guilty and froze me out. Better to bury the lie than come clean."

In her periphery, she saw Steve nodding. "That sounds like him." She looked up at him, happy to see that he wasn't looking at her like she had betrayed him. She chanced a glance at Bucky. He'd moved to stand near Sam and lean against the kitchen island. The harsh look in his eyes had softened and he no longer looked like she'd kicked him while he was down.

"What do we do now?" Maria asked. She was leaning back against the countertop next to Sam, her arms crossed over her chest. Peggy had reached out to her when they'd got back. A single line message on a burner phone. Maria had responded with, "Secure location, Director?" and Peggy knew that Maria was an ally. They met at Sam's house in the early dawn, confusing him for a moment before he recognized them and offered his couch.

"Well, what's left of Zola is rubble," Harry said. "We still don't know what HYDRA is going to do."

Peggy shared a look with Steve. "Well, isn't it obvious? PROJECT INSIGHT. Killing people before they commit crimes. Controlling the population with fear that if you step out of line, you die." The chilling declaration was met with a contemplative silence.

"I know the basics of how the helicarriers work. They have information stored on computer chips that tell them who to target. If we replace those with some of our own, we could salvage the helicarriers."

"I'd feel better if they were destroyed completely," Steve said.

Maria had a look of resigned horror on her face but she nodded. "If they know someone's on to them, whoever's in charge of HYDRA is likely to speed up the launch. If we don't act quickly, we'll need some way of getting onto the helicarriers if they're already in the air."

"Who's in charge, then?" Sirius asked. "Maybe we can get to them beforehand."

Romanoff answered his question with one of her own. "Who at SHIELD has the authority to launch a domestic missile-strike?"

Three voices—Hermione's, Steve's, and Peggy's answered in unison—"Pierce." Steve continued, "There's no chance at getting at him if he's at the Triskelion."

"Most secure building in the world," Romanoff agreed with a nod.

"He's not working alone. Zola's algorithm was on the Lumerian Star," Steve said.

Romanoff's eyes went wide. "So was Jasper Sitwell." She leaned back and tapped the table.

"How do we kidnap a SHIELD agent in broad daylight _and_ get him to confess what he knows about INSIGHT?" Steve asked. Peggy, Romanoff, Maria, and Hermione looked up at him like he was an idiot. "Okay, I get it. You can interrogate him. Still doesn't solve the kidnapping part."

"He's scared of dogs," Maria said. She was looking at Sirius with a calculating glint to her eyes.

Sirius glanced over his shoulder at her and winked. "How fortunate for me."

After a short moment of silence, while they were all contemplating their particular parts of the mission ahead of them, Harry said, "We can get brooms. Fly up to the helicarriers." He looked at Sirius who was nodding.

Hermione was shaking her head. "I haven't ridden since school. I'm no good on a broom."

"We'll get someone else," Sirius said, flippantly.

"Who else can we trust but the people in this room?" Hermione asked.

"I guess this is the point where I offer my resume, then, huh?" Sam said from beside Maria. He had a smug look on his face, especially at the confused looks he was getting but he pulled open what Peggy had thought was a junk drawer in the kitchen island and pulled out a folder. He dropped it in the middle of the table.

Romanoff was the first to pick it up. "Is this Bakmala? Khalid Khandil mission. That was you? I heard they couldn't bring in the choppers because of the RPGs. What'd you use? A stealth suit?"

He tipped his head up, to get her to look at the next page. Her eyebrows raised like she was impressed before she passed the folder to Steve. He studied the contents of it and then looked up at Sam. "How do we get our hands on one of these?" He passed the folder to Hermione and after a quick look, she passed it to Peggy. Looking up at her from the photograph were several men, one of whom was Sam. All of them were wearing sets of mechanical propulsion wings.

Sam looked almost wistful when he answered. "The last one's at Fort Meade behind three guarded gates and a twelve-inch steel wall."

Romanoff shrugged. "Doesn't sound like a problem."

Now that they had the foundation of several plans, Peggy put her Director-hat on and assigned the missions. Romanoff, Harry, and Sam would drive up to Fort Meade to retrieve the Wings suit. While they were at it, she would contact Pierce through a proxy server with a magically created backdrop to make it look like she was still in Paris. When the connection was made, Maria would use a back channel to tap into SHIELD to get a launch countdown and schematics for the helicarrier targeting chips so she could have new ones made. Sirius was to head out and buy two flying broomsticks.

Peggy felt the interesting way her clothes changed their fit as Hermione tapped them with her wand. They'd discussed a thick warm sweater and a relaxed look for her hair and a generic hotelesque wallpaper for her background. When she was ready, she activated the call on the phone Steve was holding steady for her.

"Pierce," the older gentleman said, answering the video call.

Peggy exhaled and started the ruse. "Secretary Pierce. This is Agent Peggy Carter."

"I know who you are, Ms. Carter." She bit her tongue instead of correct him to her title of Agent.

"I just wanted to explain why Agent Barnes and I haven't checked in to participate in the search for Captain Rogers and Agent Granger."

His eyebrows raised minutely. "I'd assumed it was because you live with them and were accomplices. Is this not the case?"

"No, sir. You see, Agent Barnes and I are in Paris celebrating our first year anniversary," she gave an embarrassed sort of smile and lowered her eyes like she was fighting a blush. After a second she cleared her throat and looked back up at him; his expression hadn't changed but he was still watching her. "Our mobile phones were off since we're on vacation. We just turned them back on recently. Has the manhunt been called off or do you expect the fugitives to have fled to Europe? We might be able to work with the SHIELD teams over here if we're needed." Past the screen, she could see Maria made a motion that conveyed she needed more time. Peggy kept her hands in her lap out of sight but made a thumbs up to acknowledge the request.

"That won't be necessary. We're almost positive they're still in the city."

"Yes, sir. I'd also like to extend my sympathies to you as a friend of Nick Fury. He was a good man," she said.

"Ah," he said as if he could now see the true machination behind her call. "You were on Nick's short list when it came to succeeding Director, were you not?" She nodded but he didn't give her time to speak. "There's an investigation on-going regarding Nick's murder, hence the manhunt for Rogers and Granger. Although you weren't at the scene when it happened you do share an address with our number one suspect. Your recommendation to Director has been put on hold until the investigation is completed. I hope you understand, Ms. Carter." He closed the connection. His words had sent nausea through her. Disappointment sat like a stone in her stomach.

She looked to Maria who was nodding and standing up. "It's good. I got them. I'll be back in an hour."

Peggy blinked at the blank screen and relaxed her shoulders. She heard the front door close and she took a moment to sigh. Steve dropped the phone he was holding for her and reached across her lap to clasp her hands. She met his gaze and he smiled at her.

"We're together. Everything will work out. Now come on, I think Bucky's got the right idea." He tugged on her hand and pulled her up, leading her from the corner of the living room into a spare bedroom. He grabbed Hermione's hand along the way and towed her along too. Bucky had already removed his shoes and he was laying down in the middle of the bed. He opened his arms for them when they came into the room.

Peggy crawled on the bed first, to snuggle into his embrace. Steve and Hermione followed until they were laying bunched up like logs, four people wide on the full-sized bed.

* . * . *

Bucky sighed heavily, enjoying the smell of the fruity shampoo Hermione had talked Peggy into using. They were supposed to be in Paris, celebrating their first year anniversary. Not here, tearing down Peggy's brainchild.

Hermione broke the silence. "I'm sorry this is ruining your anniversary week."

Bucky squirmed a little to free his arm—his left arm. Oh god, he had a real left arm again. He'd only had it a few days now—and popped her on the butt as best he could from where he was laying. "Hush. You two will just have to come next time."

"This probably ruined your chance at Director, too, huh?" she added, ignoring him and addressing Peggy.

"Yes." Peggy's voice was reedy thin and Bucky pulled her closer. Only rarely did she let emotion color her voice. When she did, it was because she was overwhelmed with it. Pierce must have said something about it.

"Knowing you founded SHIELD was half the reason I stayed," Steve murmured.

His comment pulled Peggy from her thoughts enough that she teased, "Oh, don't be so melodramatic."

Hermione's laughter shook the bed.

"How deep do you think HYDRA is twisted up in SHIELD? Do you think it's salvageable?" Bucky asked.

He felt Steve shake his head on the pillow they were sharing. "No, it's—you'd never know who was who. If we tried to save it, they'd just slip right back in. We've got to rip the top off and expose the infestation under it all, otherwise, we'll be second-guessing every decision and every order and every mission. Is this for HYDRA? Is this actually SHIELD?"

After some time, Hermione said, "I guess this means we're all going to be unemployed soon."

Bucky snorted. "Yeah. Won't be able to afford living here. Plus the apartment's trashed."

"Trashed?" Steve asked. Bucky felt the bed wiggle a little as Steve started to sit up. Hermione reached across his chest to pull him back down. He relaxed between them again.

"We swung by there to investigate when we got back. Seems somebody, probably looking for clues as to where you'd go, ransacked it. I'm sure magic can fix it but—"

"It's also subsidized by SHIELD. We're going to be homeless too."

"The apartment in New York that we turned down last year?" Peggy asked.

"Nope. That was SHIELD subsidized too," Hermione said. Bucky let his eyes fall back shut as they talked over him.

"Hmm," Peggy hummed. "Maybe a change of scenery is in order. What do you say about moving home?"

"Home? You mean back to Britain?" Hermione asked.

"Yes. It's been a long time since I've been home. I wonder if my parents' house is still standing," Peggy mused.

"I don't know," Bucky finally said. "It's a thought, at least. Something to keep you warm at night."

"Something to keep in the back of your mind. Don't die on this mission so we can all move to England," Steve teased. His dry deadman's humor made both Peggy and Hermione snort in amusement. He supposed that was all they could hope for at the moment. He squeezed Peggy tighter with his right arm and tightened his hold on Steve's hand with his left. Maybe it would be enough.

* . * . *

It was decided that since the manhunt was for Hermione and Steve, they should be the ones to "kidnap" Sitwell. And Sirius to help with the intimidation part. They tracked him down to a lunch meeting with a senator. In a hidden alleyway, Sirius dropped a Disillusionment spell on Hermione's head and she slipped into the crowd. Steve stayed in the alley. Sirius sat at one of the cafe tables outside Sitwell's meeting place and waited.

Shortly thereafter, Sitwell exited the building. Hermione was close enough to hear the smarmy inappropriate conversation between Sitwell and the senator as they headed down the steps towards the road but she kept her eyes on the two extra agents acting as bodyguards. As discussed, Sirius waited for the senator to leave before he approached Sitwell.

"Agent Sitwell, if I may have a word." Sirius was a tall man and he didn't apologize or make excuses for it. He stopped on the same step as Sitwell, which meant he towered over the Hydra agent.

"Who are you?" he asked.

Sirius offered his hand to shake and said, "Agent Sirius Black, I work out of London."

Sitwell did not shake his hand but he did ask, "What is it you needed?" He held his wrist up to play with his sleeve cuff as he shifted on the steps, taking a step back so he was one up from Sirius. They were shallow enough that it still didn't put him at eye level.

Sirius side-eyed the bodyguards. "It's Level Seven Clearance, I probably shouldn't say in front of—"

Sitwell sighed like he was put-upon and then glanced back at the other two agents. "Can you bring the car around? I need to talk to Agent Black alone." They nodded and Hermione watched them walk away. She followed on quiet feet.

When they were just getting in the car, seated but before they'd pulled the doors shut, she sent a spell at them to make them sleep. She was quick to jump forward and grab the driver so he didn't slump into the steering wheel horn. She leaned them both back in their seats and shut the doors. Then, with a moment's thought vanished one of the belts on the engine. And a few hoses for good measure. The interior workings of a car engine weren't her expertise but she figured it probably wouldn't get them very far when they woke up if it was missing parts.

She returned to the alley where Steve had been waiting to find that Sirius and Sitwell had just arrived. When Sitwell saw Steve he started looking around a bit nervously. When he didn't seem to find what he was looking for—was he looking for her?—his expression turned smug. "What is this about, Captain Rogers? Is this man even an Agent?" He turned back to gesture at Sirius but startled when instead of a tall man, there was an enormous black dog looking particularly vicious in his place. "What the—?"

"Tell me about Zola's algorithm," Steve demanded.

Hermione was quick to cast hiding spells, perfected during the horcrux hunt, and to block off the alley so Sitwell couldn't run, though Padfoot was doing an admirable job of keeping the exit covered.

Sitwell's attention was mostly on Padfoot but he glanced back up at Steve. "What? I don't know what you're talking about."

"What were you doing on the Lumerian Star?"

"Throwing up; I get seasick." Padfoot snarled and took a step closer. Sitwell took an uneasy step towards Steve. "Where's Granger, anyway? Shouldn't you be betraying your country by getting her out of it?"

Hermione chose that moment to reveal herself. "Did you call for me?" she asked, feeling the Disillusionment spell drip down and away. Sitwell startled like he'd just seen a ghost and took another step closer to Steve.

"Witches are abominable beasts, Rogers, you know that right?" He said the words quickly, his attention mostly on her as she took another step closer. "They're demonic creatures that don't have morals. How can you sleep with one? They can read your thoughts!" He took another step closer to Steve.

Padfoot chose that moment to lunge forward—he wasn't actually going to attack but it was enough to scare Sitwell into comically jumping into Steve's arms, hands curled around his lapels and his feet and legs pulled up tight to try and protect them from the dog.

Steve locked his grip on Sitwell. "That's what you're afraid of, isn't it?" He looked up at Hermione and she stepped closer, casting a silent _Legilimency_ as she did so. Sitwell's thoughts were hurried and tumbling over themselves but she delved past his fear and disgust until she found exactly what she was looking for. Zola's algorithm.

She stepped back when she was done, swallowing past the horrifying feelings of Sitwell's righteousness. How he could think killing people on a mass scale for things they hadn't done yet was the right thing to do made her sick to her stomach. "Zola's algorithm is on the helicarriers, meant to read all the available data on the internet these days to determine who's a threat to HYDRA's world order and eliminate them. Just like Peggy thought."

Padfoot shifted back to human and gave a cheeky grin at Sitwell, whose eyes had grown wide at the sight. "See, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Sitwell only whimpered.

Steve dropped his hold and Sitwell fell to the ground. He scrambled up, his hands going to his suit to press out any wrinkles like he was trying to save his dignity. "Come on. Let's get him in the car and head back. We can probably use him to bypass the DNA scans and access the helicarriers directly."

"That's a terrible, terrible idea!" Sitwell spluttered.

Sirius waved his wand in his direction, casting a silencing spell. "Put a cork in it."

Hermione took down her protections and led the way to their second "borrowed" car in two days. Sirius walked along beside Sitwell, his wand low and hidden against his leg, and Steve followed behind. No one really spoke as they got in the car. Hermione took the driver's seat and Steve the passenger. Sirius manhandled Sitwell into the backseat.

Sirius must have canceled the silencing spell once they got on the road because he asked, "Does it go all the way to the top? HYDRA, I mean? How many of there are you?" His tone suggested he meant for Sitwell to answer.

"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place," Sitwell answered.

"Cut the bullshit," Steve said, glancing back at him. "I've heard that line before. Usually from people who are on death's doorstep."

"You'll never find all of us. We're very good at hiding in plain sight."

"Yeah, well, we'll just have to—"

In front of them, the concrete rose up like black liquid, creating a solid wall. "Shit!" Hermione slammed her foot on the breaks and flicked her wand, casting a Slowing Charm as quickly as she could. Combined with Sirius's fast casting of a Cushioning Charm, the car did stop but the front end was too damaged for even magic to repair. They clamored out of the car. Hermione's hands were still shaking from the sudden brush with death.

As soon as Sitwell had stood completely he collapsed in a flash of sick green light.

"Steve, watch out!" Hermione shouted, even as she ducked down and raised a Shield Charm. A hail of bullets thudded off it and dinged on Steve's shield as well. From the direction of the bullets, Hermione could see a masked figure wearing dark clothes like some mix of leather tactical gear and wizard's robes. His black hair was in tangles around his head. Sirius turned and rolled, coming up behind her. He dropped his own Shield Charm and cast through hers. The masked figure barely moved as he carelessly brushed the spell aside.

"This doesn't look good," Sirius muttered. He cast again and then whispered a plan to Hermione.

"We got to get those guns off us. I don't know how well Steve's shield'll hold up to magic if—"

The masked figure casually walked towards them and cast a spell at Steve. Steve had made himself very small behind his shield and the white flash of the spell ricocheted off and fizzled into the asphalt.

"Well, that's helpful," Sirius mumbled. He cast two more spells through her shield, twisting up the guns of two of the gunmen. They exploded in their hands. Hermione did not allow herself to think about the way their blood splattered or the way they screamed. His spells caused a lull in the gunfire and Steve stood up and threw his shield at the masked figure. The figure jerked his wand up to divert the deadly discus, but the properties of Vibranium held true. The spell ricocheted but did nothing to stop the shield from its course. At the last moment, the figure wrenched himself out of the way, dropping to the ground. The shield embedded itself in the vehicle behind him, beheading the guy who'd been standing there.

With him down for that moment, Hermione and Sirius were up, spells cast silently and in tandem, destroying the guns of the remaining team.

The figure—Nick's assassin—was fast, however, and before Steve could retrieve his shield, he was back on his feet and aiming his wand. Sirius shifted into Padfoot and lunged. Hermione dove at Steve, knocking them both over the barrier on the side of the highway. Hermione's second Slowing Charm wasn't as fast as her first, and they both slowed but didn't stop. The impact with the ground stunned her.

Steve was a bit more durable, jumping up and grabbing Hermione by the coat. There was a loud, obnoxious wailing sound to their right.

It wasn't until she was flying through the air away from the truck that she realize Steve had flung her out of traffic. She retook her feet in time to see Steve standing on top of the bonnet of the stopped truck. "Accio shield!" she shouted. She could feel how her magic had to yank hard at the embedded vibranium before it lurched free of the metal it was in. It came soaring over the side of the bridge just ahead of Padfoot's body. The doggy yelp he gave on the way down sounded more human than it should. She halted his descent with the ground, surprised to see Sirius standing up—had he transformed mid-air? He flashed her a thumbs up and a grin.

His expression telegraphed a warning before anything else and she spun around and raised another Shield Charm just in time to block a spell of purple fire. The assassin was much closer than dueling would require and she cast a spell to harden her fist before taking a swing at him. He blocked it and returned it, his non-wand hand catching her under the jaw. The punch stunned her a second time, if only for that fact that most magic users didn't do Muggle combat. She was already halfway to the ground when she regained her senses and swung a kick out to his feet. He jumped to avoid it, kicking her in the face to counter the attack.

Sirius cast a spell at the assassin just as Steve came upon him as well. Steve swung out wide with his shield strapped to his arm. The blow knocked the assassin backward and knocked the mask off his face. When he stood back up, Hermione heard Sirius gasp behind her. "Regulus?" he asked.

"Who the hell is Regulus?" the assassin answered. His voice, his accent, sounded so similar to Sirius's that even Steve stopped and glanced back to Sirius before making another attack.

Regulus—as it had to be him—looked confusedly at the three of them before casting a last spell and Disapparating. The spell was a weak Expellarmus but it had come after a mental shock and both Sirius and Hermione's wands were tugged out of their hands and thrown in the direction he had stood.

It was then that the sounds surrounding them seemed to filter back into Hermione's awareness. She could hear the STRIKE team operatives around them in their leather and kevlar, and the barely-there creaks of guns held tightly. "Get up, get up!" Agent Rollins was saying to her. Gun held aimed at her face. "On your knees!"

Other STRIKE agents were shouting similar things at Sirius and Steve.

She felt them clamp anti-magic cuffs around her wrists. Watched as one of the helmeted agents picked up the wands and the shield. It wasn't until they were shuffling her towards the van along the side of the road that she realized her vision was slightly swimming.

Sirius's brother Regulus was the Winter Soldier.

But Regulus had died, hadn't he?

* . * . *

Bucky kept his focus on the wobbly look in Hermione's eyes even as he watched Steve flex his biceps in the thick steel double-wristed cuffs. It'd been Peggy's idea to slip in as a STRIKE team member, of course. He's glad she thought of it. So now he was sitting here, watching Hermione and Steve and Sirius and waiting for the right moment to reveal himself.

Sirius still had a dumbstruck look on his face.

He opened his mouth and closed it, then met eyes with Hermione before saying. "Wasn't there proof he died?"

She hummed and tilted her head back. The move shifted her hair and Bucky spotted blood dripping down her collar. He glanced at the STRIKE operative beside him. The van rattled a little as it went over a bump, thudded twice as the asphalt changed to a grate. Bucky nudged Steve's foot with his own.

Steve tilted his head down and stopped breathing. He looked up at Bucky and then over at Hermione. "Hermione, open your eyes. You've probably got a concussion." Turning back to Bucky he gestured with his head. "She needs medical attention." The interaction gave Bucky a reason to react. He activated his taser rod and held it menacingly in Steve's direction, then flipped it and smashed it into the operative sitting beside him instead. The guy jerked and Bucky punched him. He fell to the floor and didn't move.

Bucky took off the helmet and grinned at them. "Miss me?"

"Barnes," Hermione said, her speech a little drawled.

"Ma'am?"

"Get us out of here."

"Yes, ma'am." As he was unlocking all their handcuffs and returning their weapons to them, he asked Steve, "How'd you know it was me?"

"I recognized your heartbeat."

"Hmph," was Bucky's response. What could he say to something like that other than call Steve a sap? He'd have to do that later. Now though, he activated the Mouse Hole Maria had given him and started to cut through the bottom of the van. Before Steve jumped down into the sewer below Bucky shook his head. "This is just the diversion. Here," he tucked the Mouse Hole back into his pocket and pulled out a small piece of string.

"Harry must be back, huh?" Sirius asked. He pinched the string near the top, next to Bucky's hand and the other two followed suit. Sirius said the word, activating the Portkey.

Bucky was the only one to fall down when they appeared in their new location.

"This is not Sam's house," Hermione said. Bucky got up and Steve wrapped his arm around Hermione's back to steady her as he looked around too.

"We had about three minutes warning, but Sam's house got raided by SHIELD agents. Harry's already promised to go back to try and repair the damage," Bucky answered. He pointed to the door of the abandoned dam that led down to where Peggy and the rest had set up shop.

When they got inside the main room, Bucky glanced around at the sofas and chair Harry had conjured. Somebody must have found a fold-up table and Maria had set up a secure laptop to mark the countdown until the launch of PROJECT INSIGHT. Peggy and Natasha and Maria had their heads together talking while Sam and Harry seemed to have struck up a conversation.

Harry was the one to speak up when they got there. "Hermione? What's wrong?" He stood and Steve directed her increasingly unsteady steps in his direction.

"Car wreck, we fell off an overpass, I threw her out of traffic. She's a bit beat up. Might have a concussion," Steve listed.

"She's got blood in her hair," Bucky mentioned as he went towards Peggy, "check the back of her head." He squeezed her shoulder as he glanced at the laptop screen with the launch. She squeezed his side back.

Harry conjured a stool and sat Hermione down on it and then went through what amounted to a field check. Checked her eyes, her vitals. He then cast a few spells that didn't look like they did anything but after the third one, she hummed in relief. He rechecked her vitals.

"What happened?" Peggy finally asked.

"Apparently my dead brother is the Winter Soldier," Sirius said, flopping heavily into one of the sofa corners.

"Regulus is alive?" Harry asked, looking up from Hermione.

"Mmhmm. He attacked us on a bridge. Killed Sitwell first chance he got."

"With Hermione injured and Sirius stunned, STRIKE surrounded us. It was good thinking for Buck to slip in with them," Steve said. He tipped his head in Peggy's direction.

Natasha asked, "Did you get anything from Sitwell beforehand?"

Hermione, who looked much more alert now that Harry had done his med-check, was the one to answer. "It just confirmed what Peggy had deduced. HYDRA is a parasite of SHIELD, spread wide and deep. It goes all the way to the top, too. Zola's algorithm studies the world's past to predict it's future. Anyone it deems a threat is killed preemptively by INSIGHT."

"Then what now?" Sam asked. He crossed his arms over his chest. His gaze moved across the team leaders—Steve, Hermione, and Peggy—before settling on Peggy.

"Without announcing our presence or allegiances, none of us can get close enough to those helicarriers to change out the targeting chips." She gestured towards the briefcase sitting behind the laptop next to Maria. "We've got a little under four hours before those ships go up. We should probably sketch out who's on what team, what the plan is, and gather supplies. Head out in an hour." She paused to look at Hermione and Harry. "Do you need to stay out of the main action?"

"For the head wound?" Hermione asked, shaking her head. "No, I'm okay. Harry's got an adept hand at healing spells."

"I have a hiccup for our previously made plans," Sirius said. Peggy raised her eyebrows and gave him a slight nod. Eyes downcast, he continued, "I want to be on the ground team—or whichever team it is—that goes after Regulus." He looked up at her. "I let him down once, left him behind. Can't do it again."

"He might not be the kind you save, man," Sam said.

"Then I'll do it myself. For most of our lives, we've been on opposite sides. It'll be just like old times," he said, giving a pathetic little chuckle.

"He might be under an Imperius, Sirius," Hermione said softly.

He glanced at her. "I keep thinking that too but I don't want to get my hopes up. He didn't need an Imperius to be a Death Eater. He may have _chosen_ to work with HYDRA. If that's the case, I'll accept it, but I... He's my baby brother... I don't want anyone else to take him down if I can help it."

"That leaves us down a flyer."

"If someone gets me up on one, I can do that," Steve said. "I expect the third team is infiltration and that's not my area of expertise."

Peggy nodded. "Sam, Harry, and Steve will handle replacing the chips. Sirius and Hermione will go after the Winter Soldier. Maria is communications central. Natasha, Bucky and I will do the undercover work."

Bucky coughed. "Do you really need me for that?" She turned her head to look at him, confusion in her eyes. "It's just... Sirius has had my back a lot. I feel like I ought to return the favor and follow him."

"If that's where you think you'll do the most good," she said. She looked up at Sirius and Hermione for their input. They both nodded. "Good. Suit up."

* . * . *

Steve checked over his suit one last time. Hermione had transformed a new one from the STRIKE team body armor that Bucky had been wearing since he'd had to leave his stealth suit in the bathroom at the Lincoln Memorial. He hooked his shield on his back and glanced over his teammates.

Bucky, Hermione, Maria, and Sirius were wearing modified versions of their typical SHIELD tac. Peggy and Natasha were in business suits, though Peggy's shoulders were invisible where she'd pulled Harry's fancy cloak over her. Harry and Sam were the only ones not in body armor. Harry conjured a long string and everyone grabbed hold of it.

After the first time with Portkey travel, Steve had become used to the sensation. It wasn't pleasant by any stretch of the imagination but he didn't fall down like Bucky and Maria did. He helped them both up, glanced over his shoulder at the Triskelion, and then gave them all a good-luck nod.

Peggy and Natasha set off to "borrow" another car to drive into headquarters where they could infiltrate Pierce's World Security Council meeting. The rest of them headed towards the Triskelion from the backside of the island.

Bucky, Hermione, and Sirius broke off from their group first, heading for where they expected the Winter Soldier to show up. Harry, with his broom over his shoulder and his wand in his other hand, stood outside the door while Sam, Steve, and Maria got access to the grounds command center. Maria would be able to hack into the helicarrier system from there, though she wouldn't have full access.

Steve had one chance to rally and alert the non-HYDRA agents within the building and he'd been thinking about what he wanted to say on the walk there. Finally, when Maria meet his gaze and nodded, it was time. "Attention all SHIELD agents, this is Steve Rogers. You've heard a lot about me over the last few days. Some of you were even ordered to hunt me down. Hunt your fellow agent, Granger, down as well. I think it's time you heard the truth." He explained how HYDRA was in the building, a part of SHIELD all the way to the top. "They almost have what they want: absolute control. A war on all magical people. They killed Nick Fury. It won't end there." He told them what those helicarriers would do, how they would kill everyone in their way. He could feel the eyes of everyone in the room watching him, could see even the personnel they had bound to their chairs against the wall watching him. Some of them looked shocked, others angry.

"The price of freedom is high; always has been," he went on, "but it's a price I'm willing to pay. If I'm the only one, then so be it, but I'm willing to bet I'm not." He closed the connection and made eye contact with the others.

Maria gave him a nod as she took a seat in front of the computer. "I've got this. Go."

Steve and Sam met Harry outside and they started towards the tarmac. Even as they jogged, Steve could hear the enormous engines engage and start moving the doors over the helicarriers. It seems his speech ignited a spark. In their comms, he heard Maria swear before addressing them. "They initiated launch early. There's no way for me to override it from here. It's up to you guys, Captain."

"Understood," Steve said. They stopped at the edge of the river just as the first helicarrier was just rising up out of the enormous opening. Water from the river was still pouring into the cavernous maw below.

"Merlin's saggy ballsack," Harry muttered as he looked out over it.

Sam was nodding, seemingly agreeing with Harry's creative invective. He activated his wings, letting them fold out behind him. Harry mounted his broom. Harry took off first, flying out towards his target before it had risen too far above the river. Sam looked over at Steve. "You just going to think about it for a minute or what?"

Steve looked back at the helicarrier in front of him, rising at a steady pace up towards him. "Well, I could jump but I figured I'd wait for it to get up a little higher is all. I'm an old man."

Sam snorted an aborted laugh and activated the propulsion system on his wings. He jumped off the ledge and swooped down and back up, heading towards his own rapidly rising target.

Steve nodded to himself, judging the height of his own target and then backed up and took a running leap off the edge and into the air. He landed and rolled, standing up just as the first wave of HYDRA resistance started shooting. He pulled his shield onto his arm and headed into the fray.

Maria had shown them all the basics of how to get to the computer terminal. Had given them the access codes too. For a brief moment, he wished he could have flown like the other two, but then he heard the boom and report of anti-aircraft fire and decided that no, doing it his way was the easier option.

After the first volley of gunfire, Steve was able to get close enough to punch and kick his way through the HYDRA agents. Many of them went down with one or two hits if he hit them in the head. Though sometimes he missed and hit them in a shoulder or the neck. A quick second hit was enough to bring them down.

He could feel the air getting thin and colder even as he worked his way through the armed teams sent to delay or kill him. How had the ships risen as fast as they had? In his ear, Harry confirmed that he'd succeeded in replacing the chip in his target. Maria asked for an update from him and Sam. Sam's answer was contradictory, "I'm in—oh, shit!" and then jet machine gun strafing added to the anti-aircraft missile explosions.

Steve punched the last HYDRA agent still standing. When there weren't any more to contend with, he headed towards the terminal underneath the ship.

Being inside the ship only muffled the sounds of battle outside a little bit. He heard one large explosion and the higher pitch of strafing stopped. Sam's voice, a little breathless but without pain said, "Thanks, man."

"No problem," Harry answered.

After another moment Sam spoke again. "I'm in, bravo locked."

* . * . *

Sirius and Hermione were both monitoring either side of the island for magical activity when Regulus Apparated nearby with a loud _CRACK_. Sirius and Bucky started running in the direction of the noise. They were running toward the sound of machine gun fire and explosions. Rising into the sky above them were three monstrously large airships.

There were shouts and an explosion much closer than the others. That's when Sirius saw him. Regulus was power-walking through a group of pilots trying to scramble. He blew up a second jet with a spell and then kicked another pilot so hard the man flew off his feet and was sucked into the engine of the jet behind him. Blood and flesh splattered the tarmac underneath the plane, followed by shards of metal from the destroyed jet skittering over the concrete after it. Sirius started throwing Shield Charms up between his brother and the pilots but it didn't stop him. He turned, spotted Sirius and Bucky, and aimed his wand at them. Hermione had just come into view behind him and when Sirius shielded them she sent a spell at Regulus.

Regulus was fast, shielding the spell from her and countering with something that pulled her off her feet to fly through the air, like a summoning spell—except summoning spells didn't typically work on living bodies—Sirius didn't have much chance to figure it out as she landed on him, knocking him to the ground. She'd missed Bucky and Sirius could hear his sharpshooter best friend firing at Regulus.

He knew his brother was probably wearing armor and would probably shield himself from the gunfire but it still made his heart pound. He knew too, that Bucky wouldn't be aiming for center mass, he'd be aiming to disable and disarm—arms and legs. It didn't make him feel any better. Before Sirius could disentangle himself from Hermione, Bucky swore and fell to the pavement.

Sirius was up first, sending a brief glance Bucky's way to see he was alert and alive before he focused his attention back on Regulus. Hermione shouted Bucky's name and rushed to him. Regulus was heading away from them, towards another jet.

"I didn't know you guys had spells that instantly broke legs. Damn. I'm useless. I might have tagged his wand arm but he did this weird disappearing thing."

"He Apparated?"

"Multiple times in quick succession while I was shooting at him, yeah," Bucky said. He bit the words out through his teeth and Sirius knew he had to be in a great deal of pain.

Through the comms in their ear, Sirius heard Harry say he'd fulfilled his mission.

Sirius watched the jet Regulus was apparently piloting and pointed to the highest helicarrier when it was obvious that's where he was headed. "We need to get up there. Do you think we can Apparate?" he asked Hermione. She'd done a quick med-check and cast a spell to help with the pain but there wasn't much she could do for Bucky otherwise; he'd need more Skele-Gro to fix a broken leg.

She looked up at Sirius and then at the ship. "No, it's moving too fast. You'll land yourself in the middle of a steel beam or something."

Bucky spoke into the comms device on his cuff. "Harry, where are you? These guys need a lift."

"On my way," Harry responded. A few seconds later, they saw Harry swing wide underneath one of the ships. A jet followed him with machine gun fire on full blast. He'd had a Shield Charm up—Sirius could see it flickering with deflected bullets—but then when the jet's fire lulled for a second, he dropped the charm, turned around and blasted it with something that blew up one of the engines, it listed to the side. It restarted to fire even as it was careening towards the ground but Harry already had his Shield Charm back in place and was heading down to where Bucky, Sirius, and Hermione were on the ground.

"Thanks, man," Sam's voice crackled over the comms.

"No problem." Harry was close enough that Sirius and the others could hear him without the echo in their earpieces. "Come on," he shouted in Sirius's direction. "I can only carry one of you."

Sirius looked back at Hermione but she was already shaking her head and speaking, "Go on, I'll stay here with Bucky."

Sirius nodded, mounted the broom behind Harry, and headed towards the last helicarrier. Regulus's jet was out of sight. On their way, they heard Sam check in, "Bravo locked."

Maria's voice sounded clear in their ears. "Captain Rogers? Where are you?"

"I'm almost to the terminal. It's a maze in here. Who designed these things?" he sounded a little winded even as he joked. "If you were just going to Apparate, Sirius, why'd you send—oh, wait, you're not Siri—"

The link cut off just as the crack of a spell ricocheted off the vibranium shield. Sirius refrained from telling Harry to hurry up. He could feel the racing broom under them straining as it was, it wasn't meant for two grown men and Harry was already pushing it to its limits. They came up underneath the ship and Sirius could see Steve and Regulus fighting through the clear upside-down dome. He cast a spell to break the glass to get in and jumped off the broom onto a solid panel without bothering to say anything to Harry.

Regulus broke from his onslaught of spells he was throwing Steve's way to aim one at Harry. It caught the tail of his broom, broke it under him, and sent him spinning out of the hole in the dome.

"Harry!"

Sirius's shout was followed quickly by Hermione's over the comms as she saw him free falling too. "Sam!" she called, appealing to the other flyer in the group who might be able to catch him or slow his descent.

"I see him!" came the reply and Sirius could only hope that the other man would make it in time.

Regulus had either ignored Sirius standing below him or not seen him as he'd returned to flinging spells ineffectively at Steve to stall him from changing out the computer chip. Sirius took the advantage and sent a spell up through the metal walkway, tripping Regulus up.

He fell face first like his shoes had been tied together. There were return spells but Sirius jumped out of the way and aimed another spell at his brother. The Incarcerous bound Regulus to the walkway. Then Sirius disarmed him. He Apparated aiming high over the walkway and only landed with six inches to spare—Hermione hadn't been lying when she'd warned about Apparating on a moving object. He thought about giving Regulus a punch to the head to stop his struggling but decided a simple sleep spell would do the trick.

"Charlie locked," Steve gurgled through the comms. Sirius looked up and saw the man turn and slide down the wall, blood blossoming through the front of his uniform like he'd been sliced across the belly.

"Shit," Sirius said, running towards him. Entrail-Expelling Curse, most likely. He used his wand like a pair of scissors, slicing up Steve's uniform to expose his stomach. As he did, he was very careful of the internal yet currently external organs that were exposed. He worked on applying first aid, stabilizing the wound as well as he could.

Maria's voice felt loud in his ear, "Steve? Are you off the ship?"

"Fire now," Steve murmured.

"We're not off the ship, dammit," Sirius replied back into his.

Maria didn't seem to hear him. "Are you sure?"

"Do it now," Steve said again. His eyes were closed and sweat was dripping down his forehead. He was already going into shock and delirium.

Sirius looked at his comms device on his cuff and saw that it was black and fried. One of Regulus's spells must have hit it. "Shit, shit, shit," Sirius mumbled. He looked back at Regulus as the first missile rocked the helicarrier they were in. The sky filled with the sound of explosions. It was an unthinkable decision—save Steve "Captain America" Rogers or save his brother? He was sure he'd regret whatever he chose in the end.

He conjured a stretcher for Steve and bound him to it, careful to layer as many Sticking spells as he could to the man's belly. He leaned over him and Apparated them out.

* . * . *

Bucky hobbled himself into the patient room at the end of the hall. He was getting strange looks from many of the staff and patients nearby but he wasn't too worried. He'd experienced their Skele-Gro and knew first hand how horrendously painful it was whereas he'd never really had to go through the inconvenience that came with having a broken bone. So the cast was annoying and heavy and awkward and he couldn't get it wet and...

Yeah, they'd already put him in it before he'd come around and asked about treatment at the Magical hospital instead.

Almost their entire team had needed some sort of medical help. Natasha had needed a short stay in the hospital to check for damage done by a taser disk she'd activated on herself. Bucky had the broken ankle. Sam had pulled muscles in his shoulders and chest when he'd caught Harry spinning out of control. Harry's broom had broken and he'd had a nine-inch wooden splinter in his thigh.

After getting Steve back on solid ground, Sirius had attempted to Apparate back onto the helicarrier just as it broke apart. He'd ended up taking a long fall with the rubble into the water below. He'd been lucky enough to have been upright and stayed that way as he fell, hitting the water feet first. He broke bones in both of his feet and cracked his ribs. There might have been more but his magic seemed to protect him from the worst of it.

Steve and Hermione had the most life-threatening injuries.

Hermione had been protecting Bucky, standing nearby and watching the skies. She'd been distracted by watching Harry fall out of the helicarrier. Agent Rumlow had seen her standing there and decided to continue his previous mission. He hadn't seen Bucky, conscious and alert lying on the ground nearby. The bullets that ripped through her body and the blood that exploded away from her with their impact would haunt Bucky for a long time. He hadn't even processed if she was dead or not, just grabbed his pistol and took the shot.

Rumlow's funeral was going to have to be closed-casket.

Bucky took a deep breath and slipped past the door of the room. Hermione and Steve were on beds side by side in the mundane-magical grievous injury section of the magical hospital. Sam was already there, reading at Steve's bedside.

He looked up at Bucky and gave him a little smile. Bucky nodded back at him and settled himself down in the cushy armchair next to Hermione's side of the bed. Sam went back to reading.

Unlike mundane hospitals, there were no machines that beeped or measured the patients' vitals, just a soothing sound of rushing water, like one of the sound machines Peggy had indulged in recently. Coming from the mundane hospital, it felt almost too quiet. He closed his eyes and listened to the soft, easy breathing of his friend and lovers. After a half hour or so—Bucky might have dozed where he sat—the door opened and Harry, Peggy, and Natasha entered.

"How are they?" Peggy asked. She came and sat on the arm of his chair, leaning into his space. Bucky figured they weren't in front of anyone as superiors anymore and took the opportunity to press his face into her side in affection. He needed her calming presence.

Harry tapped something on the foot of their beds and golden numbers appeared above their chests. Heart rate, blood pressure, amount of oxygen being pulled into their lungs as they breathed. They all looked over the numbers, nodding, and Harry tapped it again. "They look all right. I'm glad the response team was so fast."

Bucky glanced at their clothes, all formal and pressed, even Harry in his scarlet red Auror uniform. "How did the hearing go?"

Peggy nodded. "Harry shouldered most of it, somehow. Natasha and I were held responsible for the information dump but the budget Pierce negotiated for SHIELD's upcoming fiscal year will go towards property damage and cleaning up the Potomac."

"What did you do?" Hermione asked. Her voice was quiet and soft like she was still partially asleep and sore from her wounds.

Harry looked over at her and grinned. "Claimed that SHIELD was already under investigation from the International Aurors. I even got Regulus's guilt sorted out."

"How?" Sam asked, setting his book on the table next to him.

"For demonstrative purposes, I put one of them under an Imperius."

"And that worked?" Hermione asked.

"Oh yeah, once I made one of them jump on a table and thump his chest like an ape, they were much more willing to concede that Regulus had no control over his actions."

"That's hilarious," she murmured, pulling herself up into a sitting position. Harry helped her by conjuring a few more pillows behind her back.

"It's not exactly the word I would use," Natasha said, "but it was effective. It did start a fifteen minute tangent about how to protect oneself from things like that." Behind her, Steve cracked his eyes open and blinked, looking around. Once he saw Hermione and then looked past her to Bucky and Peggy, he smiled softly.

There was a knock on the door and Sirius popped his head in and looked around. He grinned as he saw that Hermione and Steve were awake and stepped fully into the room. As he was magical, he'd automatically been taken to the magical hospital. All his broken bones had been healed overnight.

A spot at the back of Bucky's calf started itching and it sparked a moment of envy. He should put that on his file somewhere. If injured, take to a magical hospital.

"How are you feeling?" Sirius asked the two still in hospital beds. Steve nodded and gave him a thumbs up. Bucky wondered if he still felt too out of it to talk.

Hermione, on the other hand, was fully awake now. "I got shot." She frowned, pouting almost, and Bucky was hard-pressed not to laugh at her adorable expression.

Sirius didn't hold back and gave a short bark of laughter before saying, "The goal is to _not_ get shot, Kitten, do better."

Her frown grew exaggerated and she rolled her eyes. After a moment her look turned serious. "How's Regulus?"

Sirius nodded and inhaled deeply like he was stalling. He'd saved his brother, though it'd been a near thing. When the helicarriers had fallen out of the sky, Regulus had still been unconscious and tied to a metal walkway. He'd sunk and nearly drowned before Sirius, injured himself, had pulled him out of the river. He was staying in another part of the hospital. He licked his lips and looked away before answering. "Being under the Imperius, under several, over the decades HYDRA had him has done a lot of damage to his mind. The healers say it's something like Alzheimer's? Sometimes he's lucid, other times he's back in the past, scared out of his mind about the Dark Lord finding out about what he'd done."

"Did he know or say what happened to him?" Harry asked, concern written in his eyes.

"From what we can gather," Sirius said, "Voldemort did find out about Regulus stealing the Horcrux but was assured by dear old mum that she'd keep it safe when she found it. He sent Reggie along with Dolohov and maybe Rookwood to a Veil of Death in Russia somewhere. Shoved him through it." He gave a little unhappy smirk and a shrug. "Seems it sent him to the past just like it did me. Except he wasn't found by SSR or SHIELD. He was found by Soviets and later given to HYDRA." He glanced up at Bucky and Peggy for a moment and gave them a real smile, albeit a sad one. "Makes me really grateful that I was found by the good guys, you know?"

Bucky returned the smile, hoping his sincerity shown through it. "I'm glad we found you too, Sirius."


End file.
